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WILD APPLES 



BY 
JEANNE ROBERT FOSTER 

[Julie Ollivier] 




BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH &■ COMPANY 

1916 



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copyright, 1916 
Sherman, French & Company 



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>CI.A428776 



TO 

J. B. YEATS, R.H.A. 



WHEN I AM DEAD 

When I am dead, — 

Do I wish for beauty remembered for aye as a sun- 
bright gem 

To coronal me through all the years with a deathless 
diadem? 

Do I wish my name to be as a Master-Word, 

Whispered wherever the awe and terror of power is 
stirred. 

No, none of this, — 

Neither beauty nor power, — for the groping hands 
of men 

Will scatter my dust from its quiet place, and re- 
create me again. 

No, only this, — 

The sound of my singing voice, far-falling on alien 
seas, 

Telling the strange, wild ways of the heart, — of life's 
full cup, and the lees, — 

Heard at high noon 

As a note that compassed the gamut of earth and sky, 

That ran with the sweeping storm in the vault where 
the thunders die,-— 



Heard through the dawn, — 

In the throat of the brown peewits and sparrows that 

build in the eaves, 
In the hedge flower's bursting bud, and the trembling 

sound of the leaves. 
Heard in the wind, — 

With that unutterable sound of passionate breath, 
The gasp of a quickened life when love goes down 

unto death. 



CONTENTS 

I THE GREAT SEA FIGHT AND OCCASIONAL POEMS 

PAGE 

THE GREAT SEA FIGHT 1 

THE WILLIAM P. FRYE 3 

ROBERT LANIER ,. . . 5 

W. B. YEATS — READING 7 

THE RESURRECTION 9 

THE FLIGHT 12 

MOTH FLOWERS 15 

WHO AM I? 16 

THE WOOD 18 

THE SEAS OF GOD . 19 

II SONNETS 

THE SOUL'S DESIRE 25 

COME THOU WITH ME 26 

THE ASCENT . . ." . . 27 

THE END AND THE BEGINNING . . 28 

IRREVOCABLE 29 

THE END 30 

THE SECOND WIFE 'SPEAKS 31 

HEARTACHE 32 

HOPE LIES IN THIS 33 

THE ANSWER 34 

MY NEED 35 

MYSTERIES 36 

THE HIGHEST LOVE . . 37 

TO " NESITA, SWEET SINGER IN THE TEMPLE OF 

AMMON " 38 



PAGE 

FOOLS 39 

IDEALA 40 

IN GAZA 41 

THE LAST VEIL .43 

THE GRASSHOPPER 44 

THE RETREAT FROM MONS 45 

TO ROOSEVELT 46 

SLEEP 47 

III SONGS, BALLADS, PASTORALS 

THE FAERY WOMAN 51 

SCOTCH ARRAN 53 

THE RAINS OF ARRAN 54 

" RIDERS TO THE SEA " 55 

SONGS OF BALLYSHANNON 56 

THE EMIGRANT 59 

THE STRANGER IN THE GLEN 60 

THE BITTER HERB 62 

HARBLEDOWN .64 

THE FAIRY PRINCE 66 

SONG 67 

INDIAN SUMMER 69 

THE WILD ROSE 71 

THE YEAR OF THE GREAT WAR 74 

WILD TANSY 76 

THE NOVEMBER DANDELION 77 

THE DAUGHTERS OF THE RAIN 78 

RENASCENCE 79 

THE BRIDAL 80 

TO A PAINTING OF A YOUNG GIRL CALLED "A 

FLOWER" 81 

THE AWAKENING 83 

LOVE'S REALITY . . >. 84 

ASSURANCE 85 

THE PIXIE'S POOL 86 

TO A ROSE TREE . 87 

INTERLUDE . . 88 

OUR LADY OF THE RAIN 89 



PAGE 

AT THE END 90 

MOONRISE 91 

SONG . . 92 

THE MIRACLE 93 

DAISIES 94 

AVALON . 95 

IV THE BLAZONED ROSE 

THE ECHO 99 

REFUGE 100 

THE SOUL'S ELECT 101 

WE ARE NOT TWAIN 102 

RESIGNATION 103 

THE ETERNAL TRIANGLE 105 

HOW SHALT THOU COME ? 107 

THE OUTCAST 108 

I CAN GIVE UP THY FAME 109 

LOVE 110 

THE VOICE OF RALA .111 

YESTERDAY . . . .".'.'." 113 

THE LAST GIFT 114 

THE VISION . 115 

I HELD JOY IN MY HAND 116 

THE BLUE ENAMEL WATCH 117 

THE SECRET . 118 

DISINCARNATE 121 

MY IDOL 122 

A WAYSIDE FLOWER 123 

THE AWAKENING . . 124 

THE SOUL'S FAREWELL 125 

RETROSPECT 127 

FREEDOM 130 

THE STRONGER BOND 131 

THE PICTURE 133 

TO MY MOTHER 134 

THE GOLDEN BIRD 136 

ROSAMOND 138 

TO THE WOMAN WHO HATES ME 140 

THE PROFANED WORD 141 



V SILHOUETTES 

PAGE 

THE SILHOUETTE 145 

THE YELLOW ROSE 146 

THE PHARISEE'S WIFE SPEAKS . 147 

THE SERMON 148 

THE GLEAM 152 

THE FREEDMAN 153 

EGO 154 

ALL — ALL I DEMAND 155 

NARADA .156 

THE BODY 157 

PAVLOWA 159 

DEATH AT DAWN . . 160 

PEACOCK FEATHERS 161 

THE iSPHINX 162 

GREAT SOULS .163 

THE STREET iSINGER . 164 

ARCADY 165 

THE BARRIER 166 

HEARTACHE 167 

MY BABY 168 

MEMORY 170 

TO CARA 171 

WHAT GOD MEANT . . 172 

VI ORIFIEL 
ORIFIEL 175 

VII THE EVE OF SANHAIN 

THE EVE OF SANHAIN 187 



THE GREAT SEA FIGHT 
AND OCCASIONAL POEMS 



THE GREAT SEA FIGHT 

In my watch on deck at the turn of the night 

I saw the spindrift rise, 
And I saw by the thin moon's waning light 

The sheen of dead men's eyes. 
They rose from the wave in armor bright, 

The men who never knew fear; 
They rose with their swords to their hips strapped 
tight, 

And stripped to their fighting gear. 

I hauled below, but to and fro 

I saw the dead men glide, 
With never a plank their bones to tow, 

As the slippery seas they ride. 
While the bale-star burned where the mists swayed low 

They clasped each hand to hand, 
And swore an oath by the winds that blow — 

They swore by the sea and land. 

They swore to fight till the Judgment Day, 

Each night ere the cock should crow, 
Where the thunders boom and the lightnings play 

In the wrack of the battle-glow. 
They swore by Drake and Plymouth Bay, 

The men of the Good Hope's crew, 
By the bones that lay in fierce Biscay; 

And they swore by Craddock, too — 



2 

That every night, ere the dawn flamed red, 

For each man there should be twain 
Upon the ships that make their bed 

Where England rules the main. 
They pledged — and the ghost of Nelson led — 

When the last ship's gunner fell 
They would man the guns — these men long dead — 

And ram the charges well. 

So well choose the night for the Great Sea Fight, 

Nor ever give chase by day; 
Our compeers rise in the white moonlight, 

In the wash of the flying spray; 
And if we fall in the battle-blight, 

The shade of a man long dead 
Fights on till dawn on the sea burns bright 

And Victory, overhead! 



THE WILLIAM P. FRYE 

I saw her first abreast the Boston Light 
At anchor; she had just come in, turned head, 
And sent her hawsers creaking, clattering down. 
I was so near to where the hawse pipes fed 
The cable out from her careening bow, 
I moved up on the swell, shut steam and lay 
Hove to in my old launch to look at her. 
She'd come in light, a-skimming up the Bay 
Like a white ghost with topsails bellying full; 
And all her noble lines from bow to stern 
Made music in the mind; it seemed she rode 
The morning air like those thin clouds that turn 
Into tall ships when sunrise lifts the clouds 
From calm sea-courses. 



There, in smoke-smudged coats, 

Lay funneled liners, dirty fishing craft, 

Blunt cargo-luggers, tugs and ferry boats. 

Oh, it was good in that black-scuttled lot 

To see the Frye come lording on her way 

Like some old queen that we had half forgot 

Come to her own. A little up the Bay 

The Fort lay green, for it was springtime then; 

The wind was fresh, rich with the spicy bloom 

Of the New England coast that tardily 

Escapes, late April, from an icy tomb. 

The Statehouse glittered on old Beacon Hill, 



4 

Gold in the sun . . . 'Twas all so fair awhile; 
But she was fairest — this great square-rigged ship 
That had blown in from some far happy isle 
Or from the shores of the Hesperides. 

They caught her in a South Atlantic Road 
Becalmed and found her hold brimmed up with wheat; 
" Wheat's contraband/ ' they said, and blew her hull 
To pieces, murdered one of our stanch fleet, 
Fast dwindling, of the big old sailing ships 
That carried trade for us on the high sea 
And warped out of each harbor in the States. 
It wasn't law, so it seems strange to me — 
A big mistake. Her keel's struck bottom now 
And her four masts sunk fathoms, fathoms deep 
To Davy Jones. The dank sea-weed will root 
On her oozed decks, and the cross-surges sweep 
Through the set sails; but never, never more 
Her crew will stand away to brace and trim, 
Nor sea-blown petrels meet her threshing up 
To windward on the Gulf Stream's stormy rim; 
Never again she'll head a no'theast gale 
Or like a spirit loom up, sliding dumb, 
And ride in safe beyond the Boston Light, 
To make the harbor glad because she's come. 



ROBERT LANIER 

(In memo Ham) 

ye Eternal Voices, say he could not die, — 
This poet-soul, the youngest, best-beloved ! 

So brief his flight, so short his nesting time, 

Hardly within him had ripe genius moved; 

No thought of self had ever warped his heart — 

To do, to be, — men's tardy praise to earn, 

Their voices called but faintly in his ear; 

He only knew " there was so much to learn." 

He saw life's plan writ large — the mighty All. 

Flesh grew too weak to bind his lofty thought, 

And freedom came so gently, without pain, 

That we know, some way God gave what he sought. 

Somewhere a trumpet calls, — far is the blare. 

1 hear it on the everlasting hills; 

I will stand before God and dry my tears, 
(Though now my cup with drearest sorrow fills.) 
For our despair and sorrow, — what are they ? 
If man were shaped all joy, a palsied clod, 
He would go down to death and care no more 
Than doth the little grass blade on the sod. 
Clear and serene my vision on the hills; 
Gone is the burning grief I nursed before. 
Oh, hold him closely in your hearts, beloved; 
He will be lonely, if ye love no more. 
Fail not in ministry that once ye knew; 



Give him the daily thought, the tender needs; 
The seraphs cannot wean him from your love. 
A poet, and a poet's son: he heeds. 

God gave him peace — (we may not know His way)- 
The door is shut, and all our mortal breath 
But casts a little mist before our eyes; 
We may not know the happy ways of death. 
But this is sure: if we have lived and loved 
As he, and toiled for our small happiness, 
We shall move onward toward the open sea; 
With all life gave, — for death can bring no less. 



W. B. YEATS — READING 

Poet, I had not dreamed how you would be, 
Thinking you clay as other men, or blind; 
Pondering little whence came your magic, 
But wishing as I read for Innisfree, 
And the bee-music, and the seven green woods, 
And the seven stars, and Seven Wise Ones — 
Immortals, who were your long lost kindred. 



I had not dreamed you — thinking you but clay 
As other men are clay — to make me weep 
Or laugh, or feel desire for, — this and all 
My outgrown selfhood. Suddenly you rose 
In the lamps' flare, grave as the dark waters; 
Forgetful of each face, sense winged beyond 
The preen of curious eyes and whispered praise. 
First the recoil: too perfect far, you seemed; 
How dared you wear God's image like a gem, 
Or lean so white a hand — a poet's hand ? 



Your hand more like you than your very self; 

Your hand more like you than the shadowed eyes 

I could not see, but knew imperial suns 

Burned in them. Rustled the leaf; then your voice 

Came murmuring of " waters and pale lights " ; 

Murmuring of Dooney and of Innisfree, 

And of the ripples singing on the strand. 



8 

Poet, now thou hast made for me a dream,- 
Not of thyself, but of the Mystic Rose 
Thou singest, and the Vessel of the Grail. 



THE RESURRECTION 
(August, 1914) 

When the ardor of life is burnt out, and the earth 

swallowed up in the sea, 
When the heavens are shaken with thunders, where 

then, my Beloved, shall we 
Find shelter from storm and confusion, and cover our 

heads from the blast 
That searches the thrones and the kingdoms that were 

builded up strong from the past? 
Where then shall we flee from the fury that shall tor- 
ture the quiet of skies 
That have covered us over in solace with purple 

pavilions of lies? 
Shall I seek you in vain in the whirling of the dark, 

tumultuous wind, 
In the babel of souls that are crying, in the maze of 

the thoughts of the mind? 
Will you stand on the Amaranth stairway with a 

band of the spirits of light? 
Shall I sink like a plummet and find you in the halls 

of a Stygian night? 
The earth that has spun for a moment in the skin of a 

binding of air, — 
The pinch and the snuff of a comet, and it dies in the 

ultimate flare; 
It dies, and a trillion atoms that the Man-god loves as 

his own 



10 

Are dust of the ashes of heaven, on the fields of in- 
finity strown. 
Where then is the love beyond loving we plighted with 

seal of our tears? 
Where then are the doubts and the torments of all 

of our exquisite years? 
And if they are but naught in the heavens when the 

fury of death is at hand, 
When the sighs and the groans of the dying stir the 

heart of the sea and the land, 
Where goeth that beauty immortal, — the fire that 

burns in the brain ? 
Can hell swallow that in its scorning? Did Socrates 

die, but in vain? 
The breath of the rose — has it journeyed as far as 

the goal of my bliss? 
Do the proud and the humble together fall down in 

the angry abyss? 
And the Mother of God, and Queen Isis, Astarte, 

Astoreth of old, 
With Syrinx and Pan and Apollo, and Dian, the hunt- 
ress so cold? 
Where then is their love and their glory? Did they 

die with the glory they made, 
When the hurricanes blew in the turrets, when the 

temples were rent and decayed? 
Is there neither wrath nor forgiving; is there neither 

loss nor gain? 



11 

At the end of our dervish whirling, does oblivion quiet 
our pain? 

I will hunt as the Merciless Hunter through the dark- 
ness and whirlwinds of space, 
Through a thousand hells and heavens, to come to the 

sight of your face. 
And if you are no more than a quiver of light on a 

heavenly hill 
I will mould you again from the aethers ; you shall live 

in the might of my will. 
I will clasp you and hold you and bind you by the 

power of the living God 
That is in you, and of you, above you; that lives in 

the earth that we trod. 
And the whirlwinds no more shall subdue me, nor the 

wrath of the Ancient of Days ; 
I shall drink from the chalice of Godhood; I shall 

stand in the heavenly ways, 
And freed from the flesh that has perished, a thousand 

times in the years, 
We shall gather our joys and our ardors, our sighs, 

and the cleansing of tears; 
And under our feet the dread whirlwinds, and under 

our feet broken bars; 
And over us glory celestial, and over us radiant stars. 



12 

THE FLIGHT 

Past men, 

Past their desires, 

Past all the murmur of their hurrying feet, 

The clangor of the street, 

And their hearth fires; 

Beyond all hopes and dreams; 

Yea, beyond all adventuring at last; 

Farther away than Past, 

Farther than Future seems — 

I fled. 

Past vales 

Where sweet suspires 

Stainless flower-souls in perfume on the air; 

Where lily-gardens bear 

For the wind-lyres; 

Past all quick buds that wake; 

Past blasted buds that knew not life or death, 

Where mourns the dove, who saith, 

" I grieve for thy sweet sake " — 

I fled. 

Past lust 

Where passion tires, 

Within the graveyard of the sours fair faith, 

Where First Love's frail wan wraith 

Feeds funeral pyres; 



13 
Beyond all moon-flung shade; 
Yea, far beyond Lust's purple satiate throne, 
Where Self seeks Self alone, 
Passion by flesh betrayed — 
I fled. 



Past babes 

Whose pureness hires 

Us recreant from our heaven back to earth 

(They surely have dared birth 

For our desires) ; 

Then shall one halt awhile? 

Yea, still upon the thundering slopes my feet 

Clattered — I heard them beat — 

Impatient for each mile 

I fled. 



Past God,— 

That Presence dire, 

Shaped by the racial reverence of mankind; 

The all deceptive Mind 

That set Him higher 

Than Man within the skies; 

Past monstrous God — yea, past His reeling stars, 

His heaven's burning bars, 

Past the pale Heaven of Lies 

I fled. 



14 

Past love, 

The unquenched fire, 

Unto a still cold realm so far remote 

That not one singing note 

Of love's desire 

Its peace could violate, 

Where nought is, or is not, — the last outpost 

Gained by man's frantic ghost, — 

To worlds yet inchoate 

I fled. 



15 
MOTH FLOWERS 

The pale moth 

Trembles in the white moonlight; 

Thus my heart trembles with love ! 

The rose petals fall — 
The red petals of my heart; 
Oh, the breath of love ! 

Cool, sweet tears 

Of honey, the jasmine weeps; 

Burning fall the tears of love. 

Oh, how bitter 

Is the White Poppy, Death; 

There are no more dreams of love. 



16 

WHO AM I? 

Who am I ? True, a Seeker, that is sure, — 

Drawn hither by the immemorial lure 

Of earth-lust ravishing the plastic flesh; 

Remembered in the bodiless grey mesh 

Of memory's lotos-isle 'twixt life and death — 

That dream-world poised aloft 'twixt breath and 

breath — 
Well I remember that far, lovely land 
Where pale Immortals clasped me by the hand; 
Where I was god-like. From that clear, bright bliss, 
On the will's wings, I sank to the abyss 
Of the quick Over-world of lost desire, 
Incarnate in spent thought; the astral fire 
Circling the planet in mercurial flame ; — 
Then sinking lower still, to flesh I came. 

Who am I? 'Twas for this that martyrs bled, 
And men war, dabbling the whole world red, 
Answered but by the evil that they make, — 
Their Devil, with the world a pawn at stake. 
And no man yet has flung the answer even 
From out the halcyon slopes of heaven; 
And those who challenged down hell's fearful stair 
" Who am I ? " — only silence answered there. 



17 
Who am I ? All the searching soul can find 
Writ in the illumined missal of the mind ; 
All that the aspiring mind can climb to see 
Within the soul's unplumbed infinity 
Answers me not; so, following the Spark, 
Naked, I face My Own Law in the dark. 



18 

THE WOOD 

I heard men's voices calling in the street, 
Raucous and cold, like ravening birds of prey: 
" Lo, passion fades/' one cried, " and love 
Within earth's mortal climate cannot stay; " 
"Alas, all lovely things come to an end; " 
" No man can hope to keep his love for aye ; " 
" Who wins shall lose " — 'twas thus the voices cried ; 
I heard them through the years — and yesterday. 

Straight to the Wood — I ran ; her covert roof 

Whispered with inarticulate, sweet sound; 

I plucked a bluebell from the moist warm turf; 

I plucked a hazel on a faery mound. 

" O fair, strong Wood," I said, " lo, you have held 

The secret of content within thy bound ; 

O quiet Wood, what lure intangible 

Draws to thy leafy ways a joy profound? " 

Then there was singing in the fluttering leaves; 
And there was music of sweet muted lyres; 
And through the silence dripped a honeyed voice, 
The throaty speech of all the Wood's desires. 

" I am the Wood; I seek not anything. 
Passion forsakes not power, nor love the soul 
That builds its mansion in the Secret Place 
Known to itself, nor asks pale beggars' dole." 



19 
THE SEAS OF GOD 

Lo, there are Seven Seas. The first is dim 
With drifting shadows, — dreams that keep 
The vision of the Holy Cherubim 
Unto the Gate of Birth. In mystic sleep 
The tranced mariner holds his way fast 
Throughout the shades to freedom and to light, 
With his rich argosy won from the past, 
And dares to will beyond the enswathing night. 

Next is the Sea of Storms; the placid calm 

Yields on the instant to the hurricane; 

Nor any sacred oil or holy balm 

Can still the waves that writhe in hellish pain. 

From one pale port all mariners embark; 

And no man knows if evil fate, or kind, 

Shall cast him living to the ravening shark, 

Or fill the sails with many a heavenly wind. 

No friendly compass guides the helmsman's hand; 

False swings the needle on this wild, strange sea; 

Only a mirage of enchanted land 

Bids him sail on — until futility 

Falls on him like a scourge; the sails rot fast; 

The hull, worm-eaten, yields its sacred store; 

Fell lightnings shatter every noble mast; 

Down sinks the vessel to the ocean's floor, 

There for an age within primordial slime 

To moulder till the Last Trump sounds the doom. 



20 

Then with a spurt, up-rearing from the grime 

That binds the living to a rotting tomb, 

The mariner shall hail his destiny, 

And in new flesh stand forth with awe-struck eyes, 

While from God's hand descends a twilight sea, 

Blown hither by the winds of Paradise. 

Lo, this the Sea of Clouds, low-rolling, vast, 

Pale amber, crimson, gleaming amethyst; 

Billow the clouds around each straining mast; 

And the Sea's emerald is softly kissed 

By sun-rays colored by the vapored sense 

That on the waves deceptive glories shed, — 

Breaking the prism into opulence 

That with rare flashings crown the helmsman's head. 

No vessel sinks upon this cloud-girt sea, 

But all are lost upon its flashing tide 

And sail like phantoms cruising ceaselessly 

Until the helmsman hath forgot he died 

And knows that he drifts toward that far sea-gate 

That opens to a soundless clarion 

Unto the wider waters of life's fate 

Beyond the meadow-vale of Avilion. 

Beyond this hard-won gate a Shining Sea, 
Placid and golden as a Seraph's smile, 
Meets the blue heaven to infinity; 
And there fall luscious cadences the while 
From out desire's sweet flutes, soft-driven 



21 
By the curled images of ecstasy, 
Down from the glassy floor of heaven 
Upon the Sea, to make sweet minstrelsy. 
And the rapt voyager, lulled to sleep, 
Dreams on, held in perpetual happy trance, 
While his bark slips once more upon the deep, 
Full-breasted, careless of the waves' mischance. 

Lo, now the Sea of Splendor and of Power, — 

The eddying wash of glory and of light 

Foams the bark's prow. Here every barren hour 

Is wrung into the essence of delight. 

The ship flies on; no weaving of the helm 

Can bend her course; and the pale mariner, 

Giddy with strong soul-breathings that o'erwhelm, 

Hears a bell tolling softly in his ear 

Whose sound is endless triumph and delight. 

Blinded by joy ineffable to every ray 

Save his Soul-sun, around him dawns the light 

Of the high tide of heavenly ecstasy. 

And he has reached the Sea of Blessedness, 
That haven of the gods, far, far remote, 
Where love dies in a last long peacefulness, 
Where life expires in one long singing note. 
Where a diviner rapture rends the air, 
Leaping in flame; and the ethereal flesh 
Dies in unshaping, in the exultant flare, 
Tangled at last in God's Immortal Mesh. 



22 

Last, the Great Sea no man may rightly name 
Save as he shadows its white holiness. 
Tongue cannot syllable the Word of Flame; 
Soul cannot hold the measure of its bliss. 
Its tides eternal are God's cleansing blood; 
And all who win this Sea before His throne, 
Beginning and the End have understood; 
And thence returning, on swift pinions blown, 
Come as Redeemers — Saviors of the Stars — 
Sworn to give All — returning to earth's sod — 
Banished by the inexorable bars 
Of freedom, there to serve the Most High God. 



II 

SONNETS 



25 
THE SOUL'S DESIRE 

Love does not serve Life's dumb and driven shame; 
Nor is Love blind: Love hath all-seeing eyes, 
And walks clear-visioned in her Paradise, 
And tends nought there save her own altar flame, — 
Hears but one sound: Love's immemorial name, — 
Knowing Love moveth to itself, and cries 
Above the clamor of earth's sense-born lies 
Upon each soul within a mortal frame. 

Love serveth only Love. Oh, turn away 

From dust, my soul, nor seek joy in the clay; 

Bat with Promethean pang usurp thy fate 

Of Godhead, — with the Immortal Substance mate: 

The unquenchable, ethereal fire — 

Creation infinite — the Soul's desire. 



26 

COME THOU WITH ME 

Come thou with me to that ethereal sphere 
Where Love hath wings of fire. Bind not my sense 
Unto earth's giddying vapors, that immense 
Roll in swart clouds darkly around me here, 
Swooning my soul with shapes of deadly fear; 
Else flesh to spirit shall make sharp offence 
Beyond the dew fall of my penitence, 
And Love die bleeding upon Passion's bier. 

Come to that stilly heaven far remote, 
Where we shall win the ardors of the Sun; 
Our ecstasy shall sound a trumpet-note 
That to the Holy of Holies forth shall run 
Upborne — upon Infinity afloat — 
Uniting our two souls unto the One. 



27 
THE ASCENT 

Through misery infinite, within the wake 
Of writhing shadows of forgotten things, 
Corpses of murdered dreams, that memory flings 
Upon the moving screen, I foothold take 
Upon my slippery sins, and for Love's sake 
Can stand bolt upright, sloughing all that clings — 
Mire of the road — Waiting a flame with wings, 
A purging fire that my Soul's drought shall slake. 

New-born each day, as those who strive with death 
On wastrel battle lines, my quaking breath 
Draws God's bright seraphs round me pityingly, 
Who am so weak, yet still must fight or die; 
My destiny foretold . . . angel or clod — 
In the end nothing, — or a Son of God. 



28 

THE END AND THE BEGINNING 

God, I return to Thee ! Bruised and weak, 

Spent with vain tourneying with sin and death, 

Fearing that each day's dawn outlast the breath 

To bear my body up, I dare to speak 

Thy Name, and parting from the world's foul reek, 

Lean hard upon Thy mighty word that saith: 

" None of thy sins My love remembereth; 

I have been flesh, — the lowly and the meek." 

God, I return to Thee; make Thou my soul 

One golden grain within Thy radiant Whole. 

I want no life but as I live in Thee, 

Nor heaven save in Thy Infinity ; 

So wearily my feet each earth-path trod — 

To find — the End — and the Beginning . . . God. 



29 
IRREVOCABLE 

The ghosts of old caresses come to me 
Within the pale dawn-light. Thy kisses burn 
On other lips than mine; I see thee turn 
To alien arms. Oh, never minstrelsy 
Sobbed out so lorn a theme by any sea 
As wail of longing love that comes to learn 
It cannot violate the sealed urn 
Wherein the Past holds fast her constancy. 

O God, I want not what another had; 
It is the thought that part of you is lost, 
That I must ever with forgiveness sad — 
Compassion mending life — count still the cost, 
And force content with less than what you are; 
Gaze at a rush-light, when I dream — a star. 



so 

THE END 

After my tears, I slept, upon the day 

You left me. Some snapt cord brought swift release 

From sorrow; and oblivion's dull peace 

Fell on my heart; and far and far away 

I slipped into a Nowhere dull and grey, 

Where all life's troublings on the instant cease, — 

Lost in a drifting mist like fierce wild geese 

That honk farewell into an ice-bound bay. 

I slept to wake, O God, alone — alone ; 
Flung brutally from out the crypt of sleep, 
Instant my soul sped over sea and shore 
To the world's end, returning with sad moan, 
With unassuaging tears for me to weep, 
And the unending wail of " Nevermore." 



31 
THE SECOND WIFE SPEAKS 

Aye, tell me of those days in Italy 
With her; for I would hark the magic strain 
That bridehood sings; no premonitioned pain 
Warps its great hope that feeds on ecstasy 
And thrills with shapes of wonder yet to be. 
Measure for me each hour, and once again 
Look deep within my eyes, that once were fain 
To veil from thee a woman's ardency. 

Findest thou not one day that / may keep 
From out oblivion, where all days run, 
Nor yet one leaping hour to make me glad. 
Within my breast a poignard stabbing deep, — 
That day of days when, proud and all love-mad, 
She kissed thy lips and told thee of thy son. 



32 

HEARTACHE 

Beloved, since love's insight gives to thee 
Such power to wound, some secret way to find 
The one sad, aching spot within my mind, 
That from old custom is not quite set free 
(Yet holding promise of some grace to be), 
Canst thou not with sweet salve this sore wound bind, 
And with a soft excuse be gently kind, 
Knowing thou hast my stanchest fealty — 

Some healing word, some comfort for my breast, 
A talisman that with dull grief can cope, 
Soothing, to quiet all my heart's unrest, 
Sweeping my mind of every trouble bare, 
Writing my name upon a page that's blest, 
Emblazoned with the heraldry of hope? 



S3 
HOPE LIES IN THIS 

" Where lieth hope that conquers sullen death? 
No argonaut brings tiding of that sea; 
Faith's prophecy of splendors yet to be 
Gives cold assurance to the tarrying breath/ ' 
These are the words that fretfully Love saith 
From the Beginning, low, and bitterly, — 
Rebellious 'gainst Death's sorrowful decree, 
Upon the shores where faint hope wandereth. 

" Hope lies in this," an angel bade me speak; 

" If with my Love in life I lived and moved 

Close — hand to hand — close — touching lip and 

cheek, 
Thus conquering life with love, our faith is proved; 
Life's weaker brother, Death, hath lesser power — 
He cannot win from Love a single hour." 



34 

THE ANSWER 

My babe must wait within the shadows where 
Burn souls unborn, dim points of amber flame. 
He cannot hear my voice; he has no name 
That tongue can syllable upon the air; 
His home, alas, it is not here — nor there ; 
And yet I know that unto me he came, 
A blessed spirit free from mortal blame 
And all the sorrow that the earth-born bear. 

I would not bring him to mortality 

To know Promethean pain. Why should he come 

(This sun-bright elfin of Eternity), 

The depths of all my misery to plumb? 

Better that 'twixt me and Desire's hot word 

Stood Eden's angel with the flaming sword. 



35 
MY NEED 

I thought the world had grown a sombre grey, 

The sun burnt out, the stars waxed dim and dead. 

I heaped sad curses on my luckless head; 

I had been born too late ; — the sight of day 

Was evil to me, fires burned in my clay, 

And ghosts of fears like birds plucked shred by shred 

At my still heart, that slowly, slowly bled, 

And all desire for life fast ebbed away. 

You came to me; you comforted my soul, 
And by some healing grace didst make it whole, — 
Stanching my life-blood with thy two strong hands 
Upon my breast. Then slowly ran the sands 
Of life, and I saw what was false, and true — 
Death had not been my need, but only you. 



36 

MYSTERIES 

There is one mystery that haunteth me : 

Where is the self that I was yesterday? 

Where are the thousand selves that fade away 

In dim procession in my memory, — 

Those strangers who have built my destiny 

And bade me go with tears or roundelay, 

Where, veiled, the Future waits in distance grey — 

Imperious leman of eternity? 

And still another mystery is set 

Above those yesterdays that I forget: 

Visioned within my soul's clear mirror lies 

Tomorrow's self. Each night it swiftly flies 

Beyond my ken. Unrealized, unseen, 

Where goes this shadow-shape — I might have been? 



37 
THE HIGHEST LOVE 

On the high plane of spirit undefiled, 
There would I dwell with thee for evermore, 
As one who sleeps and dreams far from the roar 
Of busy marts; or as a languid child 
Muses in summer fields with sighs so mild, 
And pensive eyelids, till the day is o'er; 
Then half reluctant seeks his natal door, 
Sad that from faery shores he is exiled. 

Thus would I live in dream and thought of thee, 
Free from the weight of any mortal woe; 
Shut from the sights and sounds that fetter me; 
Held in a current whose resistless flow 
Doth bear my spirit close en wrapt with thine, 
Commingling our pure love with love divine. 



38 

TO " NESITA, SWEET SINGER IN THE 
TEMPLE OF AMMON " 

Thou of old Egypt, from what spiced tomb 

Have alien hands, with ruthless insolence, 

Borne here this silent, mocking, brave pretence 

Of immortality, this Nilus-bloom, 

Withered, and banded in a narrow room? 

How still thou art! Time cannot bear thee hence; 

Near thee, methinks, the very air is dense 

With panoply of shadows in the gloom. 

Nesita, singer of an ancient race, 

Thebes crumbles, and afar there lingereth 

Of Amnion's temple but a storied trace. 

Thou art forgot; the old gods yield their breath; 

Outworn the Sphinx; but in thy quiet face 

One spell survives, — the mystery of death. 



FOOLS 

If there be aught that dead men think upon 
With keen regret, most keen of all is this: 
That they went dumbly down the ways of bliss, 
Nor knew how glad a thing the world rolls on; 
Nor built they for life's joys some Parthenon 
Of art's delight, where to enshrine, I wis, 
Fame's laurel crown, or love's immortal kiss, — 
Immortal with the stars of Orion. 

Lo, they are cursed who, having held life's lyre, 

Struck not a note, nor let a song suspire 

'Twixt lips ensanguined with the blood of God; 

These are the little worms beneath the sod, 

These are the dumb, blind souls beneath your feet, 

The dusty fools who knew not life was sweet. 



40 

IDEALA 

I love you most when false I seem to be, 
For I remember well the olden tale 
That of fond lovers one must surely fail 
In merit and in tender constancy; 
That it is law, one must a traitor be, 
And over darkling waves set crimson sail, 
Filling to sweep of every wanton gale 
That idly blows upon Life's murmurous sea. 

I could bear my own falseness, but not thine; 
I have seen in your eyes the Flower divine, 
The Grail-flower, holy chalice of Christ's blood, 
Won by thy purity, thy hardihood. 
Profane not holy things ; — by love's decree, 
If one must sin, oh, let that one be me. 



41 
IN GAZA 

I 

How well those days are writ upon my brain, 

Those langorous, purple days brimmed o'er with bliss, 

That waking, dreaming held for me but this 

Great love that ever mocketh me again. 

Through all the darkness of my hours of pain 

Still thrills the wonder of her traitor-kiss, 

And all the softness of her breast I miss, — 

Her dove-like breast, of which I was so fain. 

Dark browed are all the women of my race, 

And tawny-colored, saffron-like or dun; 

She was a miracle, with lily-face 

Set in a halo of imprisoned sun, — 

A net of sorcery, her flower-like face 

That caught my soul, ere our love had begun. 

II 

But were the way again for me to tread, 
Still would I love her, for no mortal man 
Since that fair Eden where our time began 
Hath had such j oy, — the living or the dead, — 
Or found such resting place unto his head. 
There is no sting of shame, no bitter ban, 
Nor gibe nor taunt, nor anything that can 
Make me desire aught in this great love's stead. 
Imperishable, through my black despair 



42 

Weaves in and out the magic of her voice; 
I could not kill her, for she was so fair 
When round my face fell all her yellow hair,- 
A golden cloud that made the eye rejoice, 
And sweeter than the fragrance that it bare. 



43 
THE LAST VEIL 

Men say there are no mysteries any more; 

The glades are bare where goat-hoofed Pan held sway; 

And all the nymphs and satyrs fled away 

Unto a star, where mystery abides, 

Swinging englamored in the solar tides; 

Vanished the coverts where shy Daphne lay, 

Or Dian — and that " Moon-boy " till the day — 

Nor any whisper hill to hill confides. 

The veils are torn asunder. Nevermore 
Shall silence answer from the winding shore 
The inarticulate murmur of the sea; 
We have made bold to know our destiny. 
Yet 'round our altars — to our j oy or ruth — - 
The gods still weave the immortal veil of Truth. 



44 - 

THE GRASSHOPPER 

(With apologies to Leigh Hunt and John Keats) 

Summer doth bring soft music to our feet, 
The droning hum of all her winged throng 
That sings on sunburnt hills a drowsy song, 
With blurring notes and dreamy chirrings fleet, 
And amorous mating calls, for summer meet. 
And o'er it all soars ever loud and long, 
From where he hides the warm, ripe grass among, 
The grasshopper's high chant so sharp and sweet. 

When to some vagrant summer our thought flies, 
And memory, wayfaring, the heart thrills, 
Again amid the meadow-sedge he lies, 
And at our tread his voice insistent shrills — 
Blithe clamorer of summer's ardencies — 
The grasshopper chants on remembered hills. 



45 



THE RETREAT FROM MONS 
1914 



Yea, there are many dead, the brave first-born 
Of battle, and of England's sons the flower. 
Yet dare not weep for them this awful hour; 
Keep faith, lest God shall blast ye with His scorn. 
The dead ride on; for them Valhalla's horn 
Pierces the battle-murk; the grey clouds lower 
Beneath their feet, who rise by blood-bought power 
To vision on the hills the Eternal morn. 

Yea, there are many dead, but dare not weep 
For English men. Only the bodies sleep; 
Their souls ride on. Above the entrenched host 
Battalions wheel, and each avenging ghost 
Fights on for England. Hark, high overhead 
The drums of glory marshall forth the dead. 



46 

TO ROOSEVELT 

Who does thee justice in a grimy world? 
Not he who blackens thee as spawn of hell, 
Clutching at lies, and drifting on the swell 
Of mad ambition, that with shame unfurled 
Drives on to ruin, by foul currents hurled 
Of thine own nature; nor doth he do well 
Who paints thee saint-like in a priestly cell, 
Counting thy beads with valorous deeds empearled. 

The hoarse mob-voice can never make nor mar 
Thy destiny. Heed not its venomed rage ; 
Beyond the crowds grave Justice scans afar, 
Writes all thy sins and virtues on her page; 
Then turns her eyes upon Truth's guiding star, 
And knows thee, Great-Heart, in a stormy age. 



47 
SLEEP 

When I have fought with pain a weary space 
And; feverish^ disdained the breast of Night, 
Waiting for dawn to bring the peering light, 
Thou comest, Sleep, with grave and hallowed pace, 
Sifting dull opiate; thy embowered face 
Smiles on me with forgetfulness of sight; 
Thy breath a fragrant gale, that in its flight 
Brings spiced balm pain's writing to efface. 

Fold me within thy shadows to repose; 
Strew as the summer sward with leaf of rose 
Thy golden dreams. Then will I humbly pray 
One boon, the last, ere thou dost haste away ; 
In thy oblivion steeped, lulled by thy breath, 
Deliver me to thine own sister, Death. 



Ill 

SONGS, BALLADS, PASTORALS 



51 
THE FAERY WOMAN 

Come back, my Faery Mistress, 
From out the Tullach hills. 
I miss thy wild, sweet singing 
That all my being thrills. 

I want thy faery fingers 

To rest upon my brow, 

When through the blackened branches 

The night winds call and sough. 

Come dance upon the headlands 
And crags along the sea, 
And those black rocks shall softer 
Than meadows seem to me. 

Thou'rt wilful and thou'rt wanton ; 
Thy smile is wan as mist; 
But blessed he of mortals 
Who once thy lips has kissed. 

On nights when mortals slumber, 
Upon the window ledge 
The faeries weave the moonbeams 
Into a magic bridge. 

And who would out and follow 
Must pass as he was born 
Upon the path of moonlight, 
Else he must wake forlorn. 



52 



For all the greed of living 
His soul must lay aside, 
To woo a faery woman, 
To win her for his bride. 

But once his eyes have quickened 
To meet her dancing 'een, 
No more doth memory haunt him 
With all that might have been. 

So come, my Faery Mistress, 
My heart dies in my breast. 
Thy feet must dance before me 
Ere my soul finds its rest. 

I blind my eyes to seek thee, 
And all my senses find 
Is but a ghostly murmur, 
A whisper on the wind. 



53 
SCOTCH ARRAN 

Oh, I would like to tread once more 
The weedy strand of Arran's shore, 
And I would like to set my feet 
Down where the sand and heather meet. 
And once again in rocky glen 
I'd like to meet with faery men, 
Chasing the white does through the mist. 
But more than all, oh, I would list 
A voice that called me by my name, 
Shot through the air like holy flame. 
Then I forgot the things that seem, 
And wandered in a happy dream; 
And saw a door that opened wide, 
Set in the craggy mountain side; 
And knew that joy for ever more 
Was just the other side the door, 
And I should walk with Aengus there, 
And Etain of the yellow hair. 

Oh, would that I could tread once more 
That weedy strand, that heather shore. 



54 

THE RAINS OF ARRAN 

'Tis not the Arran sunshine 

I'm loving best of all, 

But the little rains of Arran 

That suddenly do fall 

From out the breast of heaven, 

At morning and at eve, 

To fill the thirsty veins of earth 

And hush the winds that grieve: 

With gentle pitter-patter, 

The winds for ever more 

To hush within the heather 

That loves the Arran Shore. 

I'd wandered far from mercy 
And farther still from grace, 
But I found a tongue for praying, 
Arran's rains upon my face. 
And in the dusk and coolness 
Of Sannox' lonely Glen, 
In the silver rain of Arran, 
I found my soul again. 



55 
" RIDERS TO THE SEA " 

Six we were who rode away 

Down to Kildonan. 
We heard the neighing of the spray 
That raced the wind by night and day 

Beyond Kildonan. 

Six we drove 'fore a swaying mast, 

Out from Kildonan. 
Six our bones to the sea-wolves cast; 
None returned at the very last 

Unto Kildonan. 

Fast in the wrack of storms we flew 

Far from Kildonan. 
The cables snapt; the mermen knew 
Where we slept in the caverns blue 

Far from Kildonan. 

Never a dripping plank for rest 

Out from Kildonan. 
The priest said mass to east, to west, 
And, " The good God, He knoweth best, 

Here in Kildonan. " 



56 

SONGS OF BALLYSHANNON 

I 

Take me home to Ballyshannon, for there's music in 

the word; 
The name o' Ballyshannon is the sweetest ever heard ! 
The little hills are lying fair and green behind the 

town, 
And the skies of Ballyshannon, why, they're never 

known to frown. 
Take me back and let me hearken to the plaintive Irish 

wind ; 
Take me back to Ballyshannon, where the neighbors* 

hearts are kind. 

I will wander in the moonlight out upon the ragged 

moor, 
With the flaming gorse and heather, — I'll not find it 

mean or poor. 
In the glen with lads a-dancing, I will pass the night 

away; 
For the nights in Ballyshannon, they are sweeter than 

the day. 
Take me back to Ballyshannon, there's a voice that 

calls to me; 
For my heart's in Ballyshannon on the other side the 

sea. 



57 
II 

I came to Bally shannon on a wet and mournful night, 
And all the way was darkness, with never a ray of 

light; 
The mist was waving 'round me and the winds were 

blowing free 
When I came to Bally shannon, sure my heart was 

whole in me. 

I went from Bally shannon when the sun was rolling 

high, 
And every rowan bud was glad and looked me in the 

eye; 
The clouds were white above me and the winds played 

in the tree, 
Yet I went from Bally shannon bearing little heart in 

me. 

Sure, my heart was crushed and broken; there were 

kisses on my mouth; 
There were cruel words upon me like a summer's 

parching drouth. 
Woman's wiles are full of mystery, they're inconstant 

as the sea; 
Just for sport in Ballyshannon, someone stole the 

heart of me. 



58 

III 

The bells o' Bally shannon, I hear them on the wind, 

And every care and sorrow my heart leaves far be- 
hind; 

I can live and thrive a season upon an alien shore, 

But I'm wanting Ballyshannon forever all the more; 

And when light o' life has left me and I'm like an 
empty byre, 

Lay my bones in Ballyshannon, take me back to 
heart's desire, 

Where I'll hear the bells a-ringing, folded arms be- 
neath the sod, 

For the bells of Ballyshannon, they will ring me home 
to God. 



59 
THE EMIGRANT 

Oh, the little waves are beating upon Ireland, 
They are crying out their pain along the shore, 
And a long farewell I'm giving 
To the hope of all my living, 
(Mavourneen, I shall never see thee more.) 

Oh, the little waves are sighing upon Ireland 
They are wailing all along the dreary shore 
And I watch the hills receding 
All my heart within me bleeding, 
(Mavourneen, I shall never see thee more.) 

All the tears of mourning eyes in Erin's country 

They have wept their bitterness upon the sea ; 

All the land is filled with sorrow; 

There is never joy tomorrow, 

And the burden of their woe lies black on me. 

Oh, the little waves are beating upon Ireland, 
They are moaning all around the dreary shore. 
(Spindrift like thy hair is blowing, 
Happiness I'm no more knowing, 
Mavourneen, I shall never see thee more.) 



60 

THE STRANGER IN THE GLEN 

Now who was walking in the glen? 
" It may ha' been the sojer men." 

Nay now, Nora Creena, 

One came on lepping fast and free 
With eyes like flowerets drowned at sea, 
And all his glances were for thee, 
Nora Creena. 

Now who came up the byre road? 

" It may be it was Father Brode." 
Nay now, Nora Creena. 

I heard one dance, I heard one sing 

Like faerie in a magic ring; 

Say who should dare so bold a thing, 
Nora Creena? 

Now who knocks at thy lowly door? 

" Maybe a stranger from the moor." 
Nay now, Nora Creena. 

I heard a bow shaft sting the air; 

The Archer Love is standing there; 

Ah, brush the floor, for him prepare, 
Nora Creena. 

You hear him knocking now so loud. 

" Does Love come humble-like or proud? " 
Say now, Nora Creena? 



61 

Alack, the door swings open wide; 
What spectre this that stalks inside? 
'Tis Death, not Love, will win my bride, — 
Nora Creena. 



62 

THE BITTER HERB 

bitter herb, Forgetfulness, 

1 search for thee in vain; 
Thou art the only growing thing 
Can take away my pain. 

When I was young, this bitter herb 
Grew wild on every hill; 
I should have plucked a store of it, 
And kept it by me still. 

But, oh, I plucked the roses; 
My heart they cannot heal — 
The velvet, crimson roses, 
'Tis only joy they feel. 

And oh, I plucked the gay flowers, 
And scorned the herb of grief; 
I scorned the rosemary and rue; 
I scorned the bitter leaf. 

And now I cast them from me, 
The lovely springtime flowers; 
They have no solace for my heart, 
Nor comfort for my hours. 

I hunt through all the meadows 
Where once I wandered free, 
But the rare herb, Forgetfulness 
It hides away from me. 



63 
O bitter herb, Forgetfulness, 
Where is thy drowsy breath? 
Ohj can it be thy seed hath blown 
Far as the Vales of Death? 



64 

HARBLEDOWN 

In Harbledown the churchtower stands 
Upon the ancient Roman lands, 
And every stone with age is greyed 
In the old crypt the Romans made. 
Winding the highroad rambles down. 
Beyond, to Canterbury town, 
Circling the vine-clad belfry tower 
That knells the passing of the hour. 

Within the close the dead folk sleep, 
So happily, one may not weep. 
Life's mortal combat passed and gone, 
They sleep with heavenly armor on, 
Dreaming within the mellow clay 
Till Gabriel blows the Judgment Day. 

I walked among the grassy mounds; 
From out the posies came sweet sounds 
Of fluttering wings. A grave-bed stirred; 
I saw a soul change to a bird 
And seek the utmost parapet 
Of that old tower with ivy set; 
Then o'er the Sanctuary high 
It lost itself within the sky. 

I looked beside the mildewed walks, 
And found a grave with lily-stalks 



65 
Fast withering^ — one so lately made 
The turf with clay was overlaid. 
And where the lilies' whiteness spilt, 
A word was traced in silver-gilt: 
" Mavis **; so then I knew that I 
Had seen a bird fly to the sky. 



66 

THE FAIRY PRINCE 

He came at last — the Fairy Prince, 
The God of Dreams — the dim ideal; 
But not for me his armor's clang, 
And not for me the trumpet's peal. 

Within the lists he rode at ease, 
A careless victor, lance at rest; 
But not for me the tourney won, 
And not for me the final test. 

His mistress was a spotless maid. 
The rose she cast was " Rose o' Youth," 
Even as mine; but my own rose 
With drooping leaves revealed the truth. 

My feet had known no cloistered path; 
From crown to toe I bore the stain 
Of contact with the grimy world; 
The blot will not come out again. 

He came at last — the Fairy Prince ; 
Across the tourney's lists he passed; 
And not for me the laurels won, 
And not for me his lance was cast. 

But still he came, O God of Dreams 
And God of Pain, — he came — he came. 
His mistress knows him as a man; 
I know the Saint who heals my shame. 



67 
SONG 

Far, and farther, and far away — 

" Follow — follow "— 
For ever, and a year and a day, 
While the youth o'thee will stay, 
And the blood be calling — 

"Follow — follow"— 
Hollow — hollow reeds 
You're blowing, Pan. 
" Hasten while ye can." 

Up and on to the rim of the hill — 

" Follow — follow " — 
There is a star, and the wind's sweet will 
To guide you on; you may drink your fill 
Where the springs are falling. 

" Follow — follow "— 
Hollow — hollow reeds 
You're blowing, Pan. 
" Hasten while ye can." 

Just where the hilltop's swaying sedge 

" Follow — follow " — 
Touches the sky is the moon's great edge, 
Tethered there like a golden sledge, 



68 

Where Pan's pipes are calling 

" Follow — follow "— 
Hollow — hollow reeds 
You're blowing, Pan. 
" Hasten while ye can." 



69 
INDIAN SUMMER 

We held our breath lest the bright day should end, 

So amber clear its dawn, so blue its noon; 

Over the grass still green the dead leaves blew 

Bustling reproach that frost should come so soon; 

A scent of smoke had drifted through the air; 

The sun of afternoon burned through a haze 

That sifted o'er each far horizon's edge 

In reminiscence of spring's flower-shod ways. 

Almost it seemed the morning's dawn would bring 
The crocus through its bed of leafy mold; 
Almost that tulip beds would flaunt once more 
Their piebald silks of crimson and of gold^ 
And that the larch trees would be rimmed with green, 
And maple buds turn red with fragrance sweet, 
And all the evanescent, fragile charm 
So shortly past lie spread about our feet. 

We walked out through the sedge grass, past the 

marsh, 
And finding driftwood cast upon the beach, 
Sat watching white-sailed ships that veered along 
Full set, some haven of the west to reach. 
Among the sedge grass there are roses blown 
When summer trails her lovely robe of green 
Among the marsh pools, vagrant wildling blooms 
That hide behind the grasses' waving screen. 



70 

One rose was left that, braving cruel winds, 

Gave tardy blossoms by some trick of fate. 

Pale blooms we plucked and held against our hearts, 

Cherished them dearer that they came so late. 

The sun sank downward through the mellow haze 

And crimson flared in setting o'er the sky, 

As if the day a pensive swan-song wove 

In notes of color ere it paled to die. 

Soon faded red to amber, rose to gold, 

And gold to purple; in the distant west 

There shone a clear light not of sun nor moon; 

The trees lay silhouetted dark at rest; 

Hushed were the birds, a chill was in the air; 

One solitary snowflake drifted by, 

And in the east the star of evening glowed, 

A point of light upon the sombre sky. 

O Indian Summer of our northern climes ! 
O late, wan summer — to our frost-touched hearts ! 
Something within thee that the spring has missed 
The hidden flood-tide of our spirit starts; 
Something within thee speaks of purer skies 
Where parting comes not, where day doth not cease, 
And dust of dead earth roses blooms again 
In an immortal summers perfect peace. 



71 
THE WILD ROSE 

I am the Rose outside the garden wall; 

You, who are human, hear my little plaint. 

The wind is fickle, he remembers nought; 

And Philomel — the world calls him a saint — 

He loved me once; but other roses bloomed 

And he loved them. Perhaps he loves us all; 

But Time waits not. In dust we're soon entombed 

And vanished; only the strong root remains 

That reaches down into the living sod — 

Down farther than the creeping winter frost 

Can come. There's rose-dust in each clod, 

And God and I make roses every year. 

We give them to the beggars in the lanes; 

We give the children all the buds they ask; 

Sometimes when careless summer quickly wanes 

We give them to the wind and to the weed. 

One grief is mine: I am outside the wall. 

At first I did not know, and thought the world 

Just weeds and brambles. Then I grew so tall 

I could look over in the garden there 

At tended flowers, at many a bordered aisle 

Set with pale lilies and with every bloom 

That's rare and precious. Then a little while 

I saw the gardener digging at the briars, 

Tying one here, bending another there, 

Pruning the recreant shoots that spread too far, 



72 

Rearing them smooth and straight and tall and fair. 

There were no earth-grubs gnawing at their roots; 

They were too precious; service was their meed. 

I wondered if the gardener ever knew 

The Wild Rose springs from just the selfsame seed. 

But there came others to this garden plot; 

A Lord and Lady breathed the mellow air. 

The Lady held the roses to her breast 

And nestled them within her fragrant hair; 

And once she turned and saw me bending o'er 

The wall, strait-gazing, love in all my crown 

Of petals, and the blithesome Lady said, 

" My Gardener, you must cut that Wild Rose down." 

Perhaps the gardener loved wild roses or perhaps 

Forgot the task. I know he never came, 

And I clung closer to the rough-hewn wall, 

Bowing my head for fear of further blame. 

I have the sunlight and the soughing wind 
And blowing mists and savor of sea-rain, 
And I wax lustily with all my shoots; 
And yet there's nought can take away the pain, — 
I am outside the wall. There is no converse sweet 
With sister-roses, — they who call me " wild " 
Who am more tame than they, more meek at heart, 
Having no pride to make me less than mild. 



73 
The bramble grows my brother, pricks my blooms 
With roughness, and the envious thistle hides 
Beneath my branches ; there the sedge grass grows. 
I have fought with them and my strength abides. 
A painter sat beside me one whole day, 
Praised many a bud and on the canvas drew 
My roses, then he turned and went away 
Into the garden where my rivals grew. 
And once a lover pining for his love 
Sang rondels to " a rose " in my green shade; 
A wild rose might not serve his love to please, 
And yet might give the rondel that he made. 

If there are gardens in that happy land 
That wise men dream lies at the end of life, 
Beyond the bramble and the thistle's stings, 
Beyond the pain and all our weedy strife, 
I pray the Gardener takes the weary seed 
Of all my roses, and that He may find 
One seed among them all that He will plant 
Within His garden with the gentle kind 
Of roses. Then no more my leaves shall make 
A trembling sound of sorrow in the night. 
Not vagrant, wild, I shall grow tall and straight 
As other roses in the Gardener's sight. 



74 

THE YEAR OF THE GREAT WAR 

TO MY MOTHER 

Mother — Mother — 

Little Mother mine, 

Every year upon your birthday morning 

I have sung in rime 

Some gay rondelay for love's adorning; 

But this gray spring time 

I have neither chant nor rondel; their light measures 

Vanished from my casket of bright treasures 

Long ago. This year the world is weary, 

Peace departed — 

And my rimed words are sad and dreary. 

Heavy hearted 

Pass the days in some pale dream of living; 

Hope is weary of her endless giving, 

And I have no grace of flaunting praises 

For thy years. 

One gift only, poor but precious, — only — 

Only tears 

Sobbed out lonely midnights to your soothing, 

Tears that we 

Wander lost within a maze of horror, 

Where Infinity 

Pours her cup of blood and wrath and passion, 

Vents her antique wrath in newer fashion, 

Pouring — pouring blood and souls of men 

To some darkling purpose; and again 



75 

Our eyes look on dully while our brothers perish. 

Irony beyond the grief we cherish, — 

We must turn and live, and follow after 

All the mocking sweet lure of life's laughter. 

I repine 

To you in my ashen words, yet must go seeking 

Anodyne 

In the lees of pleasure: I must bid you close 

Your deep vision, seek but color of the rose; 

Laugh with me soon in Spring's fragrant netting, 

Join me in delectable forgetting. 

Mother — Mother — 

Little Mother mine, 

I will bring you gladness for the asking 

All the years; 

But today accept this bitter wine, 

For today mirth may not be my tasking, — 

Only tears. 



76 

WILD TANSY 

Around the dump heap's ragged edge, 

Within the vacant lot, 
The sweet wild tansy grows as free 

As in some sylvan spot. 

It creeps around the motley pile, 
A rim of fragrant green; 

The fairest thing upon the morn 
That tired eyes have seen. 

It does not pine for solitude, 

Nor heed the city's roar, 
But lifts its head as buoyantly 

As by some poet's door. 

It takes the sunshine from God's hand,— 
This odorous, simple weed; 

With sun and rain its faith is sure: 
He knows its every need. 

O humble tansy, growing there 

Amid the filthy scum, 
A gentle sermon thou dost preach, — 

Although thy leaves are dumb. 



77 
THE NOVEMBER DANDELION 

November flower, in fields of brown, 
I spied thy nodding, golden crown, 
A glittering straggler mid the fern 
That withered by a frosty burn. 
Imprudent flower, couldst thou not learn 
The lesson I so often spurn, 
Nor spread thy petals to the blast, 
Whose every breath might be thy last? 

Thou must not pine in meadow drear 
In the late Autumn of the year. 
I'll pluck thee from untimely fate 
To my sad heart; thou art the mate 
Of some late hope > whose amber star 
Shines with a glamour borne afar, 
And claims the shelter of my breast 
With thee, sweet posy, sore distressed. 



78 

THE DAUGHTERS OF THE RAIN 

Between the darkness and the dawn 
Three sisters came to me; 
They were the Daughters of the Rain 
That dance upon the lea. 

They glided o'er my window sill 
And 'round my lowly bed, 
And placed their cooling hands upon 
My hot and aching head. 

And one was called Forgetfulness, 
And one was Dreamless Sleep. 
Beneath her fragrant fingertips 
My eyes forgot to weep. 

The last was snooded with wet flowers 
From green and bloomy sod; 
She was the fairest of the three: 
Her name was Peace o' God. 

Between the darkness and the dawn 
They came to comfort me, 
The Faery Daughters of the Rain 
That dance upon the lea. 



79 
RENASCENCE 

Tell me, folk of the spring, 
Of the flaunting gold and the tender green, — 
You who return with insolent tread, 
Gladsome of mien, 

When will Margery come, 

Who folds her hands in the cool dark ground? 
Will she dance forth with a gay young smile 
From her low mound? 

Yield me your secret lore, 

How the dust can hold through the brumal night, — 
Fragrance and splashings of color that seem 
Born of the light? 

Emerald, amber and gold,- — 
Silent you are 'neath the sun and the rain; 
The round of a year will your petals fling 
Wine-stained again. 

And I know she will come 

After the winter of death, and its sleep, 

With the blue-veined flesh, and the calm, sweet brow, 

My love to keep. 

Listen, beneath the sod: 

In a newer age and a fairer clime 

Spring shall be yours and the selfsame eyes, 

Margery Mine. 



80 

THE BRIDAL 

She bade us robe her as a bride 

In satins white and cold, 
And crown her brow with rarest gems, 

Though she was very old. 

" Today/' she said, " the Bridegroom comes, 

And I would fain prepare 
To greet him in my bridal pomp, 

That he may find me fair." 

She bade them make her room a bower 

Of lily and of rose, 
And dress for her a bridal feast 

With every flower that blows. 

When all was done, a miracle 
Had washed Time's toil away; 

Her cheek was smooth and fresh and fair 
As on her bridal day. 

She bade soft music fill the air; 

The door swung open wide; 
The Bride rose up to meet the Groom, 

In beauty glorified. 

We could not see him as he passed, 

And bore her soul away 
To a celestial marriage bed — 

She died upon that day. 



81 
TO A PAINTING OF A YOUNG GIRL CALLED 
" A FLOWER " 

Did your beauty only last 

One brief hour, 

Sweet, that men should name you this — 

Just "A Flower"? 



You were hardly woman, Sweet, 

Just a child; 

You were a white rose-bud, Sweet, 

Undefiled. 

There is not a hint of love 
In your face, 
Only innocent, wide-eyed 
Childish grace. 

Yet you seem all formed for love, 
Dreamy-eyed ; 

I could fancy ere I breathed 
That you sighed. 

Sweet, you were too fair for us, — 
Just a flower, 

Born to bend and bud and bloom 
In a bower. 



82 

Like a rose to bud and bloom 
And to die, 

On a zephyr's vagrant breath, 
Shattered lie. 



THE AWAKENING 

I was so young and free and wild, 
Nature's own blest and happy child, 
Until within Life's ripening wheat 
I spied my Mind hid, fast asleep. 
For years my Mind has sleeping lain, 
While others reaped the ruddy grain. 
I struck brute blows in heedless rage; 
I cursed the wheat; I cursed the Age, 
Since I had gained nought for mine own 
Than poppies that the wind had sown. 

My Mind awoke and looked at me, — 

Below us lay the waving sea 

Of ripening sheaves, — then strode away, 

And with the reapers every day 

Toiled as a Titan. Y^ars fled fast 

And all the harvest mine at last. 

Alas, my folly and my pain, 

Who cannot be care-free again 

And glean the poppies from the wheat 

And let my Mind forget to reap. 



84 

LOVE'S REALITY 

I said, " If I put all the passion and the pain 
Of life into my song, say, who will care to read? 
There is so much of joy that waits a word 
To sow it broadcast where the world hath need, 
Why should I sing the bitter fountain's spurt 
Within my heart? " The " Sedges " answered me. 
(I walked among them that day pondering 
On the great bliss of Love's Reality.) 

The singing Sedges answered me: " Bend low, 
And hark our song. We harp-strings of the wind 
Sing ever sadly; sedges mourn and mourn 
With murmurous music sorrowful, yet kind, — 
The soughing sound of peace unspeakable 
That calls thee to that last, still resting place 
For tired hearts, where droopingly we bend 
And with root-tendrils clasp thy quiet face. 

" When thy sad songs arise, Old Memory 
Stirs from her sleep, and once again thine eyes 
Regretful-turning pierce the Veils of Time 
And fine that We and Thou are only Lies/ 9 
Thus spoke the Sedges by the ragged marsh, 
Singing together like a weary sea; 
But I climbed to the hills that lay beyond, 
And sang my song of Love's Reality. 



85 



ASSURANCE 

If we can but be true — 
Apart, torn by our twain conflicting lives, 
Fettered by custom, bound with duty's gyves, 
Treading a path of pain, that justice still 
Be done on earth as is God's gracious will; 
If we can but be true and stem the tide, 
Why, He will keep us ever side by side. 

If we can bravely love — 
No deepest deep unknown, no highest height 
We have not won, oh, we shall find the light. 
Beyond the lingering hell we dare to scorn 
Our hope forecasts a far diviner morn: 
If we can bravely love, beside some sea 
God will prepare a place for you and me. 

And we shall surely know — 

All that our hearts have longed for in the years 
We toiled and laughed and sang above our tears 
And kept clean-hearted in the teeth of wrong, 
Whispering each other, " O my love, be strong " : 
And we shall surely know whence came the ray 
Of purest loye that led us all the wav. 



86 

THE PIXIE'S POOL 

I knew at once it was a Pixie's Pool, 

And that the wood was an enchanted wood, 

It was so quiet. There was not a sound 

To break the stillness, and I feared to breathe 

Lest all might vanish and my eyes awake 

On the familiars of our mortal world. 

I said there was no sound, yet to the sense 

That's hidden, there was chiming of faint bells 

As if a moon-moth's wing had swept the tongues 

Of the red columbines that fringed the pool, 

Or as of elfin laughter echoing far 

Within the trumpet stalks, melting to air 

Upon the fragrance of their balmy breath. 

I laid me down upon the sere brown leaves, 

Pierced by the spurring, pale-green shoots of spring, 

And watched the shadows pass within the pool, 

The flying clouds, the happy, swift-winged birds. 

Then from the silence spoke a Spirit- voice : 

" This is the mirror of Love's Faeryland, 

Where dreams awake from out their life-long sleep." 



87 
TO A ROSE TREE 

(That bloomed beneath Anne Boleyn's Tudor Rose carved 
in stone on King's Chapel, Cambridge) 

roses of the Tudor time, 
These roses of the summer's prime 
Emboss their crimson leaves beside 
The roses for which men have died. 

1 grant the Tudor rose its place, 
Set by the mullioned window space; 
But oh, how heavenly 'tis to me 

To pluck a red rose from the tree 
That mocks the Tudor Rose so rare 
And lives and thrives in common air ! 



88 

INTERLUDE 

Beloved, well play together! 

Fame's a feather; 

Only God and the wind know whether 

'Twill settle on river or vale or hill, 

But the heart leaps on when the mind is still; 

So Love, in the sunny weather, 

Come, let us play together. 

Beloved, we'll rest a season ! 

(Needs no reason). 

Our souls are free from spot and treason; 

The earth will yield us a place for sleeping 

When the dark comes on. Dear, to my keeping, — 

Your hand; joy will serve as a reason; 

Come, let us rest for a season. 

Beloved, while yet we have breath 

We'll fear not death; 

'Tis some false word that the preacher saith. 

Down in the long grass Death could not find us, 

Where the flame-red lips of the poppies blind us ; 

Hiding there, we will laugh at Death, — 

'Tis a word the preacher saith. 



89 
OUR LADY OF THE RAIN 

I will go to my sweet Lady of the Rain — 
I will turn my face and follow where she goes, 
And my heart shall lose its longing and its surging, 

weary pain, 
As a mountain in the springtime sheds its snows. 

I will go to my sweet Lady of the Rain 
As a child, so I will whisper on her breast; 
I will fold my tired eyelids where no shadow of dis- 
dain 
Hides to mock me as I pause a while to rest. 

I will go to my sweet Lady of the Rain 
With the sorrow born of loving in her eyes, 
And the coolness of her fingers where the early flow- 
ers have lain 
Shall recover me from sickness of life's lies. 

I will go to my sweet Lady of the Rain — 

O'er the meadows lying verdant we shall tread; 

We shall find a hidden well-spring, one for which my 

heart is fain; 
We shall listen, hearing all that could be said. 

I will go to my sweet Lady of the Rain — 

And together in the silence of the night 

She will lead me 'neath wet branches that will drip 

and drip again 
On my feverish eyelids, weary of all sight 



90 

AT THE END 

Now there are left at the end only these three: 
Wind of the hills, and the blowing rain, 
And my great Mother, the Sea. 

Lo, Love came, and I heard him beat at the gate, 
But kinder the desolate wind 
That blows in the salt sea strait. 

Lo, Fame cried me ; she shone like a moon-struck gem, 
But dearer the drops of the summer rain 
To make me a diadem. 

Lo, God leaned down and caught at the soul of me; 
I foreswore God and the Seraphim 
For my great Mother, the Sea. 



91 
MOONRISE 

The dark was velvet, smooth and palpable 

And pungent, warm with lily-musk and wine 

Of o'er-blown roses mellowed by the sun. 

It flowed in waves, soft-beating tides of gloom; 

It broke against me in a soundless wash 

Of blackness, pouring down a rayless night 

Upon my eyelids, swathing me around 

With dull oblivion; steeping every sense 

To drooping numbness with narcotic calm. 

The eyebrow of the moon shot o'er the hill, 

And one long lashing of celestial light 

Ravished the earth with splendor, silvering 

The garden slope unto a shining sea. 

With that first ray of light the hush was gone, 

(Hid under darkness's wing it fled the spot) 

And from the aisles of lily and of rose 

There shrilled clear an ambuscade of pipes 

And tinkling bells ; the dew began to rise ; 

And shot from moon-rayed dells and twinkling flowers 

There came Titania's host to cry the moon 

With argent cymbals and with echoing horns 

And all the pomp and pride of Faeryland. 



92 

SONG 

Beloved, I would sing. Such melodies 

Lurk in each bloom that springs along my path; 

I would cross hands upon my breast and sing 

For gladness, though the song be none of mine, 

But borrowed from the haunts of silver rills 

And wildwood coverts, sweet with hidden flowers,- 

The soft, low sound that summer meadows croon, 

Or that the moonflower all the livelong night 

Breathes to the moon in dreamings of delight. 

I would sing rose-songs. Did you never know 

Those perfect blossoms carry in their hearts 

Such haunting strains as only Syrinx blew? 

If you but listen (with the inner ear) 

Over a rose leaf softly, you shall hear 

The echoing over-tone that stains the leaf 

From palest tint to glowing passion-red. 

If I could form in living melody 

The deathless beauty that these roses hold, 

Could I sing all, then happy it might be 

That " I " would vanish and the song would live. 



THE MIRACLE 

" Dear Lord," I prayed, " a miracle, and I believe." 
Then lo, a-sudden, 'mid the rime of wintry ways 
A thorn tree bloomed with tender green of leaf, 
And scent that spread upon the sharp, keen air 
Like incense blown from some Elysian mead. 
Then as I gazed with reverent, wondering eye, 
The white bloom vanished, and against the sun 
Hung but the bare, black boughs, frost rimmed, 
Clashing together in the chilling blast. 

" Lord, Thou hast mocked me," loud I cried; 
" Thy miracle a mirage of the air, — 
A fantasy of brain, now quickly gone. 
No sense-deceit can guide my faltering faith. 
Grant thou a miracle, and I believe." 

Somewhere a Voice spoke, soft and sorrowful: 

" There are no miracles, O Son of Man. 

That which thou sawest was as real as these 

Wild winds that harshly sweep about thy path, 

Or yonder bough reft of its fragrant bloom. 

Only a moment may the mortal sense 

Attune itself to the transcendent sphere; 

One fleeting moment may the mortal mind 

Mirror the things of spirit without fault. 

The green young leaf, the petals flowering white 

Realities; but to thy blinded eyes 

The wintry snow heaps on the bare, black thorn." 



94 

DAISIES 

Sometimes I think if I could lie 

Among the daisies, underneath June's sky, 

I would not ask more of my life than this : 

The simple portion of a daisy's bliss. 

I would not ask more than the white 

And gold that soothes my jaded, weary sight; 

Mayhap some playful child would pass my way 

And pluck me " just a daisy " for his play; 

Or to a love-lorn maid would fall my lot 

To answer, " He loves me " or " He loves me not." 

Ofttimes I think if there are garlands hung 

Around His throne, and snowy blossoms flung 

For the swift passing of the angels' feet, 

Those flowers of Heaven, wonderful and sweet, 

Are but the souls of daisies pure and white, 

Transplanted to those realms of radiant light. 



95 
AVALON 

If you, dear heart, in lands that lie 
Beneath the ever changeful sky- 
Have found a city, wondrous fair, 
Called Avalon, oh, tell me where? 

It was so very long ago — 
How many years I do not know — 
I passed without its portals fair, 
And turned to find — but empty air. 

Long have I searched, but searched in vain, 
To find those magic gates again; 
But ever they lie far away 
Beyond the rippling edge of day. 

But sometimes in the morning dim, 
When wild birds chant their matin hymn, 
I see her towers in vision rise, 
A misty mirage in the skies. 

Sometimes when dreaming half awake, 
I rest beside some woodland lake, 
From out its depths in splendor gleams 
The long-lost city of my dreams. 

And sometimes in thy voice I hear 
Her bells that ring so sweet and clear; 
And in thine eyes of blue I see 
A wraith of my lost Arcadie. 



96 



Her bells ring out so glad and free; 
Her banners stream full merrily; 
But never more shall these two feet 
Tread lightly her enchanted street. 

Fair is the rose you gave to me, 
But fairer those I ne'er shall see; 
Though bright the sun shines down today, 
My Avalon lies leagues away. 

When still I lie at last, and dead, 
And from this flesh the soul has fled, 
Mourn not nor weep for what is gone: 
It dwells in peace in Avalon. 



IV 
THE BLAZONED ROSE 



99 
THE ECHO 

There are sounds so beautiful that they seem to be 
the sounds of heaven. There is the sound of a lily 
bursting its sheath; there is the sound of the wind in 
the grass ; there is the sound of the far-away brook in 
the woodland, the sound of the sea, the whisper of the 
breath softly inhaled and exhaled by lovers. But 
more wonderful, more beautiful than all is that mys- 
terious murmur that fills my mind with awe, and my 
soul with reverence, the sound of the beating of your 
heart. To lie upon your breast, to listen to the 
muffled pulsations — knowing how near and yet how 
far one life is from, another — fills me with strange 
speculations. I lose at times the sense of being alive. 
I am dead, and your heart is beating over me, — will 
always be beating over me. I was born only to hear 
that sound; I shall go on forever hearing it, a calyx, 
a wall against which the throbs pulse. And I give 
back the beat: I am the echo of your heart. When 
you have dreamed, I have watched the fluttering of the 
white flesh, the tiny ripple that marked systole and 
diastole, and thought that if your heart ceased to beat 
my own heart would stop — would die as an echo dies. 
And if my body still lived, it would live without a 
heart, for the beat of your heart moves mine. 



100 

REFUGE 

I take refuge in a great love. 

Out of the wrack and ruin of life 

There appears to me a shape of splendor — 

Love-glorious, all compelling — 

Love-deathless and everlasting — 

The exalted worship of the soul, 

The mystic worship of the body, 

Filling the universe, 

Surrounding its object 

With perfection; 

Asking only perpetuation as reward, 

Only delight in the burning 

That destroys the tares of life 

And lifts the reedy fluting of earth-voices 

To celestial music. 

I take refuge in this great love; 

It is my sanctuary; 

It is the bosom of God 

From whence I came, 

To which I have been eternally returning. 



101 
THE SOUL'S ELECT 

Beyond possession, I possess you, having come 
Unto the Holy Temple — to your Soul, which Time 
Hath now restored me, like as the sense-cloyed air, 
Unto a poet yearning, the forgotten rime 
His song but lacked. 

Nay, come not near, nor touch me now; 
Thou art my Well-Beloved; there can never be 
Between us love's profaning; for the Eternal Flame 
Hath caught us living to God's holy mystery. 
I burn as Danae in the Shower of Gold; 
Yet virgin to thee, I shall bear immaculate 
The Son of God. Lo, now, He stirs beneath my heart, 
And in my dream afar the Mages watch and wait. 



102 

WE ARE NOT TWAIN 

We are not twain: hell is duality, 

And blessed Oneness all the heaven to find. 

I grow in thee. Dost thou not feel each vein 

Throb fullness with my life? Oh, rich and pure, 

Its fountains feed thee, welling from my heart — 

Supreme surrender and supreme desire. 

All that thou art springs fecundate in me; 

All thou couldst win clings close upon my pride; 

All I aspire thy Wholeness doth outpour 

Upon my spirit in high ecstasy, 

And our Souls' Self in darkness whispereth : 

" I am thy God; there is no other God! " 



103 
RESIGNATION 

Love, I have lost so many of your years 

That I give up, lose heart, and let you go. 

You have lived out your life, and I may sue 

The years in vain, and hear the clanging, " No," 

Answer desire. Yes, I shall give you up, 

Resign myself to duty's patient lies, 

And spill forgetfulness from the bright cup 

Of youth. Alas, that there are none so wise 

They can bring back to me your youthful days 

That are no more. " Alas, this day and this," 

I cry; "they ran so joyous down life's ways; 

I know, I know how much of you I miss." 



Had I been with you in each fond, lost dream, 

I should have grown as fair as Deirdre, 

Who loved in the green wood beside the stream, 

Till Death grew jealous of her liberty; 

I should have drunk thy loving breath by breath, 

While each slow moon her hollow crescent filled; 

I should have prayed thy love might bring me death 

Ere the quick rapture of our days was stilled. 

I am resigned — O God, forgive the lie. 

There is a world set over sun and moon, 

Beyond the azure empire of the sky, 

And there, I pray Thee for a single boon — 



104 

Give me one life wherein my days shall be 
Blended with my Beloved's, till the whole 
Shall count upon time's endless rosary, 
A litany — one heart, one mind, one soul. 



105 
THE ETERNAL TRIANGLE 

Wait ere you kiss me . . . talk a little while — 
A dumb, sad questioning lies in your mind; 
Do not make habit your poor compromise. 
Your thoughts fly like sea-birds before the wind, 
And you are haunted by old oaths tonight, 
By vows you swore so long — so long ago, 
And hesitating, know not where the Real 
Lies for you, nor just how you are to know 
Your true allegiance. Hush, and I will say 
The needful word; 'tis neither here nor there. 
Old vows and new, — what are they but the flux 
Of life's creative fire? That you spoke fair 
To her, to me, and to lost women too — 
What is it all, when measured by the pole 
That with its far magnetic swings you round 
And round the orbit of the Inner Soul? 

We Three are One; we undivided face 

With wisdom more or less the Great Unknown; 

Allegiance unto One is unto All. 

If Truth shall reap the fields that you have sown, 

Let thy words die — old vows be less than air. 

To lie with words, a fault ; — but 'tis the sin 

Beyond forgiveness when with issues we 

Make falseness ; with essentials and the thin 

Keen edge of fair intentions ; or when we deny, 

Thinking to salve a lesser mind its pain, 



106 

Our own fair Truth, and so sink down to hell 
And find at last our very souls have lain 
Upon a bed of vipers. 

Do not speak — - 
Twilight burns on the hills; exorcise now 
Those phantoms of old loves; death comes apace 
And Spring no more will rim the barren bough. 
Here swings the censer; here the incense burns; 
Here the Eternal Athanor of Power, 
Body supreme, transmuter of our dross — 
The Rose Alchemical — the Magic Flower. 



107 
HOW SHALT THOU COME? 

How shalt thou come to me? Why, as Love comes 

In dreams that stir the sleeper's heart to burn 

With phantoms of pure passion, undefiled, 

That beckon on to dim enchanted lands 

With murmur softer than the drowsy brook 

Sings to the glade on summer afternoons. 

Come with the sighs, the panting, quick-drawn breath ; 

Come with the rosy glamourings that lie 

Close to the heart, when Love's swift feet draw near; 

Come with the shadows of that fairer realm 

Of mystery that hides in thy two eyes. 



108 

THE OUTCAST 

I have not read in martyr tales 

Of woman crucified: 

Always upon a martyr's cross a man has bled and died. 

And yet I know that agony, for on Love's living cross 

Each day my bleeding heart is hung; I know the pain, 

the loss. 
The " thorns " upon my brow — the days I live apart 

from thee; 
The <e nails " that pierce — my hidden shame : I am 

not wed to thee. 
And oh, the " wound " that tears my side — I see thy 

first-born run 
To meet thy smile : oh worse than death, for / — I 

have no son. 



109 
I CAN GIVE UP THY FAME 

I can give up thy fame, 
The wearing of thy name, 
Everything dear to me, 
Save bearing pain for thee. 

I can — in ghostly tomb — 
Lay unborn of my womb, 
Yet must I while on earth 
Keep travail-pain of birth. 

Lest I die unfulfilled 
(Star-dust the Master willed), — 
Barren, I still must know 
Birth's fiery, orphic woe 

Till a diviner morn 

Mine Own Self be fairly born, — 

Child of the dreaded pain 

That Love gav'st and gav'st again. 



110 

LOVE 

I listened all the night — 
God did not speak a word; 
I only heard my own wild heart, 
With its wild longings stirred. 

I looked to the farthest star; 
God did not show His face; 
Between the moon and me there shone 
A phantom with your grace. 

I felt the livelong night 

God was not anywhere 

In heaven or upon the earth, — 

But vou and I were there. 



Ill 

THE VOICE OF RALA 

I have never borne thee child, My Lord, in all the 

weary years 
When I was thy slave in Rajiput, where they sold me, 

filled with fears; 

I have not given the greatest gift, the fruit of our 

blended breath; 
I have not cried with a mother's pain in the hush of 

the valley of death. 

Thou hast kept me free in tenderness from blight that 

would me destroy; 
Thou hast buried thy face upon my breast and made 

of me a toy. 

As a woman should, I gave delight; I have known thy 

ecstasy ; 
I have worn thy gold and graced thy house, almost — 

have I been free. 

Yet thou lovest me not; thou art lonely still, asleep 

upon my heart, 
And I may not have and I may not hold — save as a 

thing apart. 

This I pray thee, Lord, in thy mercy see, and grant 

me flesh of thy flesh — 
Thy beauty shaped to a newer life and wrapped in a 

finer mesh; 



112 

For no decree of the deathless gods can sully the bliss 

that's won 
By the selfless loving a mother knows who gives her 

life to a son! 

And if breath of his life drinks mine, My Lord, still 

shall I say, " 'Tis well ! " 
Gift for thy gift have I given, Lord, and there is no 

more to tell. 

He shall be strong as the Devas of Light, and wise as 

the soul of the sea, 
And out of Thy princeling's eyes, My Lord, the mother 

shall look on Thee. 



113 
YESTERDAY 

(Boston, 1910) 

The wind blew cold o'er the frozen fen, 
And hurried back to the North again: 

(And nowhere my Love did pass.) 
It harried the icy fruit of the thorn 
And the shivering birds that sat forlorn 
In the barberries, hiding each downy head 
Under their wings for lack of a bed, 

(And my Love came not, alas!) 

I climbed the arch of the ancient bridge, 
Where the ice clung fast in a frozen ridge. 

(And never my Love came nigh.) 
And the icicles clattering fell below 
On the frozen brook, and the quiet snow 
Buried them deep to rest at last, 
Safe from the whip of the northern blast. 

(Oh, blue was his bonny eye.) 

The late primrose and the windflower lay 
But bare, brown stalks of the year's decay. 

(Oh, how could my Love come here?) 
My voice was dumb that had shrieked aloud, 
And my heart lay wrapped in a wintry shroud ; 
So I hid it there in the frozen fen, 
To sleep till the spring shall come again. 

(For never my Love walks here.) 



114 

THE LAST GIFT 

Death waits without; God takes me first, Beloved, 

While yet 'tis spring. 
Ere summer's poppies are pale-scarlet budded 

My soul takes wing. 

I have no speech to comfort thee, Beloved; 

I shall have said 
Love's utmost word, and poured love's lavish giving 

Ere I am dead. 

Yet in my hand one gift for thee, Beloved, — 

Love's last — and best: 
You shall forget me in the golden summer 

When I'm at rest. 



115 
THE VISION 

1 looked upon the face of Love one day 
When you lay in my arms, your head upon my breast; 
Across your face there swept a sudden change, 
And lo, Love lay within my arms at rest. 

You were forgotten, nay, had never been, 
And only Love held thrall my soul and fate; 
The world swirled into darkness; far away 
I heard a wild dove calling to his mate. 

So having seen Love, why, I love you not, 
Nor any of the time; not knowing, I loved Love, 
That one transcendent vision pays for all — 
Peace ! hark the cooing of yon nesting dove. 



116 

I HELD JOY IN MY HAND 

I held Joy in my hand — 

A wild bird from mountains Arcadian. 

I heard his heart beat and the swift flutter of his wing ; 

Knew that he would fly, leaving me alone. 

Once I unloosed the fingers that pressed close. 

So Joy bode with me, captive, for a day ; 

Then hushed his heartbeats, ceased the flutter of his 

wing; 
Af right, I oped my hand — there, never more to pipe 
The sweet, wild carol of a far off land, 
Lay dead the swift bird Joy, and all my song was 

mute. 



117 
THE BLUE ENAMEL WATCH 

There lay the shimmering, blue, enameled disk, 
Nestled in satin amber as the dawn. 
Clutched to its heart the immemorial years* 

I was affronted that this azure toy- 
Should be the mask of the devourer, Time; 
Should be the servant of that gnawing tooth 
That crumbled Nineveh and Thebes away, 
And crushed the golden towers of Samarcand. 

Tick-tock, tick-tock, this toy shall coldly count 
The flying seconds of our fadeless joy; 
Tick-tock, tick-tock, this plaything's chime shall toll 
When Sorrow shakes her tears upon the hours; 
Tick-tock, tick-tock, this pretty baud shall tell 
When, like a sigh, my last breath floats away; 
Tick-tock, tick-tock . . . the endless rune will run 
When yesterday's oblivion holds thy years. 

Yet will I love this marker of my times — 
And love thee more, knowing its gilded dial 
That murmurs, with faint chirruped choristy, 
Only the lie that masks God's timeless heaven, 
Where thou and I in j oined ecstasy, 
Without beginning, and without an end, 
Circle the Dial of Eternity. 



118 

THE SECRET 

I would not bend to fate's decree 

That gave a single life to me. 

And ere my heart was cold and still, 

By might of my celestial will 

I drew another life to me 

That fed my soul with ecstasy: 

A secret life I could not share 

With common earth and common air; 

A love that would not be denied, 

That all my being glorified. 

I lived this life — to me so dear — 

Without regret, without a fear, 

And all my ardors offered up 

To life within love's golden cup: 

For love I must — (Oh, best and worst 

Of being, — that insatiate thirst). 

With soft caresses and with tears 
I ringed the dial of the years ; 
But ah, cold, unfeeling world 
Its anathemas at me hurled; 
And then upon a bitter day 
My idol crumbled unto clay, 
And I was left to die alone 
Shame's cruel death that doth atone 
The body's sins. I sank below 



119 
A weight profound that, pressing slow, 
Crushed out my life-blood drop by drop; 
The blinding torture did not stop 
Until cool clods of earth did rest 
Upon the warmth of my still breast. 
For Shame had killed my spirit's pride, 
And at the last my body died. 
Oh, gentle as a passing breath 
Or as sweet sleep, the body's death 
To me (who oft had died ere this) ; 
I welcomed death's benignant kiss. 
Long, long I lay in silence there, 
Shut from the sweet and blowing air, 
Shut from the roses and the rain, 
Whose touch I might not know again; 
Long, long I lay, till music stole 
Within my dark and narrow hole; 
There was such singing near my wall, 
I could not hear the grave-worms crawl. 

When I found strength to burst the sod, 
My soul went singing up to God; 
Rebellious still, it bade Him give 
Me yet a thousand lives to live. 
And so He sent me back again 
To feel the sunshine and the rain, 
And locked within my brain the key 
To all life's baffling mystery: 



120 



Whoe'er dies most lives greatly, since 
All death but serves in life's defense; 
Fear not to die, for death will give 
The Soul at last the right to live. 



121 
DISINCARNATE 

I am afraid tonight: — the shadows wind 
Fearfully in the streets. I am half blind, 
Moving midst phantoms as an empty shade 
That in the light must slowly, slowly fade. 
Life was a dream, and I — oh, what was this 
Old Body-flame that leaped and burned with bliss? 



122 

MY IDOL 

My idol hath feet of clay! 

Yet what matters it? 

His head is of carven ivory; 

His helmet of precious stones — 

Rubies, sapphires and milk pearls, 

Wrought with cunning of device; 

His body of pure gold; 

White thighs of silver, knees of polished brass ; 

So what matters it 

That my idol hath feet of clay? 



123 
A WAYSIDE FLOWER 

Dear Love, I am a wayside flower, 

With grace and fragrance for the passing hour: 

A little, wanton flower that loves and lives, 

And all itself to love so freely gives, — 

A strange and wayward flower that droops and dies 

When love that was its life takes wing and flies, 

But bravely dying knows not pain 

If only memory of its grace remain. 



124 

THE AWAKENING 

I cannot serve thee more; my little hour 
Draws to an end; there is not any power 
Of eager youth in me to hold my sway 
Within your heart; and vanished is the day 
I dreamed I gave you strength to keep your place 
Within your world. All that was mine of grace 
And inspiration served as daily food. 
With spirit-flame I fed your restless mood. 
You never loved me; memory will pass, 
And you'll forget the pleasant, flattering glass 
That gave your image back, transcendent dyed 
With love's deep meanings and with happy pride. 



125 



THE SOUL'S FAREWELL 

" O my heart, my mother." — Book of the Dead 

O little heart of mine, that ceased 
Its reveille for life's glad feast — 

little heart, lie still — lie still ; 
Thou hast my soul to hell released. 

Hush, little heart ! In hell's dark street 

1 would not hear thine anguished beat, 
Nor feel thy torture stir the hours 
With anguish at my life's defeat. 

Hush — and I'll whisper thee a word 
That my ethereal sense hath heard 
Dropped from those weary souls who drain 
Hell's agony, by whirlwinds stirred. 

There is no way so hard and steep, 
Nor any grave so dark and deep, 
Can keep us twain apart that time 
When angels o'er my sorrows weep. 

Then in immortal flesh I'll stand, 
And tear away thy mouldering band, 
And pluck thee to my breast again — - 
The gladdest heart in all the land. 



126 

The soul's strong horror is alone 
Enough the flesh's sin to atone; 
I am so glad that you could break, 
And lie beneath the turf and stone. 

I would the seeping graveyard rain 
Could wake thee into life again, 
And while in hell I burn thou couldst 
In some red rose forget thy pain. 

Hush — hush — I hear thee beating still 
Within the tomb. Is it God's will 
To pour thy blood a thousand years, 
The cup of my repentance fill? 

Heart, I pass to the Dim and Vast, 
Into the yawning whirlwind's blast; 
Farewell, O broken and spent heart — 
I take my Paolo's hand at last. 



127 
RETROSPECT 

Five years, Beloved, since you came to me. 

It is an hour — and yet eternity. 

I cannot measure time with careless bliss, 

Nor bind eternity unto a kiss; 

Yet swinging over time, in heavenly weather, 

Float all the hours that we have spent together. 

Five years ago you won me by some grace 

God gave you, and the passion in your face; 

Now I can say: I win you every day 

From out the commonplace, the hopeless grey 

Of life, and hold to high adventuring 

Thy soul, else that the weary sense would fling — 

Crazed by the tumult and the endless din — 

The Holy Grail unto a deadly sin. 

I have my pride: no Pharisee may say 

I drew you down to life's forbidden way, 

Or deem that twain with me walks covert shame. 

I build my life to free you from all blame. 

Lo, the cold world sets judgment on us all 

By fruitage; root-soil matters not at all, 

Save to ourselves; and e'en the humblest clod 

Where our life-tendrils creep sings up to God, 

As I do now for this day of Love's days; 

And He looks down and hears me set Love's praise 

So high that every sullen evil shade 

Of terror warped in flesh begins to fade. 



128 

You are the mirror of my God to me; 

Through you I see ofttimes His frailty, 

But never yours. I guess you glimpse in me 

His weakness, twisting shackles to be free, 

But never mine. . . . 

Beloved, do you trust 
These fragile urns of rainbow-tinted dust 
That soon will blow on newer winds away, 
Nought but fair miracles of shifting clay? 
Or do you find that inner pleas ance bright, 
More subtle than the airy wings of light, 
Wherein abides our spirits' ecstasy, 
And all our hoped for immortality? 

I need not share thy love; no one can break 
The charmed circle, nor thy offerings take. 
I give thee all — and that thou canst not do ; 
Creation through thee takes its way anew, ■ 
And part of thee goes on into the race 
That in our love hath neither hold nor place. 
Yet my soul shatters wide earth's heavy bars 
And scorns its cell to speed the morning stars; 
And on a flight with Gabriel this morn 
I laughed at all my days that were forlorn, 
And listened, caught unto a swaying mote 
Of radiant aether, to a silver note 
That came up from the earth so far below. 
I knew that note: it was the murmuring low 



129 
Of thy love- whisperings. Then I surely knew 
I must not to high heaven vainly sue 
To give thee home, and child, and fireside rest; 
I must give love — God knoweth that is best. 



130 

FREEDOM 

I have wrung out of pain a temper of the mind 
That will not prison you from the free kind 
Of living that creative genius needs. 
My love but feeds 

The wells of kindness; you shall never sink 
Again to cringing servitude's dark brink. 
Life is a mystic shrine, or else a hell so deep 
The best to hope for is unending sleep. 
I find the shrine — body and soul of me 
Must on life's altar burn eternally. 

I give thee quiet, undisturbed hours, 
And days of dull indifference, when life's powers 
Gather resistance, even sluggish ease, — 
That soft narcotic for the mind's disease. 
And time for every one — love for them too ; 
I am not miserly, not even of you. 
Last, I give folly — God is not so wise 
He does not play the fool in Paradise. 



131 
THE STRONGER BOND 

I have given a great love — and in vain ; 
Heartburnings, sighs, fierce jealousies, raptures, 
That can never come back to me again, — 
Given as a river gives to the sea; 
Spent as lavishly as Spring spends her blooms ; 
Distilled the rare essence that was of me 
The purest and best. 

I have given all — 

And in vain. For this I understood not, 

That to a man the greatest love will pall, 

Or he can give it up, thinking 'tis best, 

And suffer long martyrdom, and endure 

Scorn, hatred, bickering, and all the rest 

Of life's pricks, and drink of the turgid cup 

Of disillusion; for the egoist 

Within him never, never will give up 

The joy in martyrdom — the Game of God — 

The crucifixion for the ugly sins 

Of others — the ascension from the clod 

That spurns him. 

If you would bind your lover, 

Be thou to him a sinner, and let him 

Suffer from you, for I cannot discover 

A stronger bond. He will grow close to thee, 

Sheltering thy sin. Furies cannot tear 

Him out of the delectable, deep pit 



132 

Of sin's redemption. This the tragedy 
Prometheus knew; there is no other one. 
Not heartbreak, nor a sad satiety, 
But that love cannot filch the heavenly fire; 
Else that love cleaving to itself must die, 
Ash of the altar flame of sin's desire. 



133 
THE PICTURE 

My friend, where do our little child-souls go 

When we grow up? . . . Now Sandro's picture here 

When he was one year old shows plain to me 

That they go somewhere; for it is quite clear 

This laughing sprite is not the grave-eyed boy; 

This magpie child, not that still sober youth 

Who cons his Caesar and goes out next year 

To peer at knowledge and find his own truth. 

Where has the wonder gone, the heavenly smile, 

The delicate, mysterious air, 

The wise angelic gaze, the eager love 

That ran wide-armed, the brow so pure and fair? 

Young manhood is so rare and fine a thing 

Unspotted (well I know your father-pride) ; 

But there is something nearer heaven here 

In this old picture; and I turn aside 

To shed a tear that you should ever lose 

The child within the man. 



134 

TO MY MOTHER 

Beloved: 

This is thy March child's natal day; 

Wild storm and wind 

Turn the swift circle round the dial, 

Give him the restless mind, 

The heart for every trial, 

The faith to kneel and pray. 

Beloved: 

All the fierce stars have mutely met 

O'er him and me. 

March souls — March courage gave us twain, 

Blended our destiny, 

Made small our care for gain, — 

Our hearts with love inset. 

Beloved: 

All the blasts hurtling far, storm-driven, 

March-born fear not. 

They cast from Mars' own chariot wheel 

Down to earth's grot 

Souls forged like flaming steel — 

Fearless, their souls are given. 



135 

Beloved: 

As each man's heart, so is his love. 
To the March-born 
Love is a keen and cruel sword, 
Sharp cleaving life's black scorn, — 
Drawn for a beggar's hoard. 
March-born love only love. 



136 

THE GOLDEN BIRD 

How can I live? The Golden Bird has flown; 
The cage is empty; wide the shattered door. 
I have searched everywhere; my soul makes moan 
Unto my heart — " He will return no more." 

I have hung lures upon the rims of fragrant days, 
And from rose-thickets watched the whole night long 
For flutter of his wing down moon-struck ways, 
And harked the echoes for his ardent song. 

There is none like him — my rare Golden Bird; 
I cannot find his name; it is not writ 
On gilded parchment; men have never heard 
Once on this earth the singing sound of it. 

But all remember how that once they knew 
Somewhere — far off — beyond the seven seas 
A country where he dwelt. There skies were blue 
And silver apples hung from all the trees. 



And all remember, held by Youth's bright glow 

He bode a captive for a year and day, 

Then swiftly flew — where, where, they could not 

know, 
But somewhere in the land of " Far-away." 



137 
Then glad with memory, full-flushed they burn 
Upon the moment with immortal flame; 
Yearning with glad desire, they swiftly turn, 
And lo, they have forgot his heavenly name. 



138 

ROSAMOND 

Heart-break and heart-break, 
And weary wind o'er the sea, 
And oh, the ghosts of all the things 
Love never could give to me. 

He promised me a flagon 

Filled with a faery brew; 

And he promised me Fame's bubble, 

And the moon — when it was new. 

He promised me a palfrey, 

And many a silken gown, 

And that he would take me with him 

Unto the shining town. 

He promised me enchantment, 

And a slave to tire my hair; 

He said the village folk should shout: 

" There goes My Ladye Fair." 

Heart-break and heart-break, 
And weary wind o'er the sea, 
And the long, long years I've waited 
For the things love promised me. 

The silver cup he gave me 
Held many a tear and sigh, 
The bubble burst to pieces; 
The moon is in the sky. 



139 
I care not for the burgeons 
Upon my silken gown; 
He never took me with him 
Unto the shining town. 

I did not find enchantment, 
For I was hid away 
Within a secret bower he made; 
My roses all were gray. 

Another rode beside him 
Within the cavalcade, 
And every hoof -beat of her steed 
Upon my heart was laid. 

The folk, they bent before her 
And sang " My Ladye Fair " ; 
I saw the golden sun beat down 
Upon her golden hair. 

Heart-break and heart-break, 
And weary wind o'er the sea, 
And oh, the ghosts of all the things 
Love never could do for me. 



140 

TO THE WOMAN WHO HATES ME 

Oh, learn to love me for thine own soul's sake! 
Make me thy litany, though heart shall break; 
(For mine was broken, oh, so long ago; 
Its fragments made a lamp that soft doth glow.) 
If we could know each other's breasts at last, 
Weep hard, and mingle all the bitter past 
With our hot tears ; then onward, hand in hand, 
Each gently loving, — why, the very sand 
Of Time would backward turn; we could regain 
Our Eden, lost through bitterness and pain. 



141 
THE PROFANED WORD 

" Thou art Danae in the shower of gold." 
Ay, thou hadst said it — heaped the golden word 
Upon the page until sense, grown o'erbold, 
Caught at the glory that the mind had stirred. 

Ay, thou hadst said it long and long ago, 
Ere yet thy memory had returned to me, 
And on strange altars blown the spark aglow, 
Spilled all the jacinth cups I poured for thee. 

And I could cry unto the mighty gods 
For that sweet burning, ravaged, golden rime, 
And shake with fury all the sullen clods, 
And drive my love beyond the pace of time. 

" Thou art Danae in the shower of gold." 

ravisher with words, in that wild hour 

1 knew thee not; my spirit leapt to hold 
Celestial Zeus, his glory and his power. 



V 
SILHOUETTES 



145 
THE SILHOUETTE 

In this silhouette of me 

Is the self you always see — 

Just the line of me, the shell, 

Not the self that I know well. 

Out upon the crowded street 

Silhouettes we pass and meet — 

Shadow-shapes, bloodless and cold, 

Cut to fit an outline mold. 

Sin and sorrow, vice and greed, 

Runs the line, the visual screed. 

Where's the Whole Man? There's the sign 

Of a Master in the line; 

There is deathless beauty set 

Even in the silhouette; 

Judge not by this mocking shade 

That to nothingness must fade; 

All this semblance that you see 

Set within mortality, 

But the shadow of the Whole — 

But the darkness of my soul. 



146 

THE YELLOW ROSE 

Sweet, saffron-tinted, sensuous bloom, 
With waxen petals, languid with perfume, 
Clotted with sunshine, — thine the beauty bold 
That flaunted in seraglios of old. 
What magic thine, what sorcery of flesh, 
Within thy velvet petals' luring mesh? 
Ah, now I penetrate thy fair disguise: 
Thou art a wanton — and thy beauty, lies. 
This gold — thy face ; that orange, deepening there - 
The scarf that trembled on thy bronzed hair; 
Those shadows — eyes wherein thy lure begun, 
Eyes tawny like a leopard's in the sun. 

Whence thy strange witchery? O cursed one! 
Thou art the Rose of that lost Babylon; 
There men swooned for thee at the Satrap's feast,- 
With hunger for thee, Siren of the East. 



147 
THE PHARISEE'S WIFE SPEAKS 

I know nothing about your life,, 

Although you pretend to tell me a great deal. 

I am as far from your real hopes and desires 

As the farthest star in the planisphere 

Of heaven. 

And what you do tell me is a sop for peace, 

Told with inflections of falsehood, 

With perversions that do not deceive. 

I am a present necessity to your good, 

And you buy me with a price. 

But at first I loved you, and believed 

That when twain became one flesh 

They also became one soul. 

I have only one thing to do: 

That is to serve. 

You do not reject service; 

Neither does God; 

And the reason I never came close to God 

Is the same reason that shuts me away from you: 

He will not share with me 

His life. 



148 

THE SERMON 

Childhood 

" Grace o' God/' the preacher said, 
And the words passed o'er my head, 
Nodding in the sunshine there, 
Caring little for the prayer, 
Caring less for the great choir, 
Lost in its supreme desire. 
But my vacant idle eye 
Scaled the loft, and soared on high 
Where the oriel window shed 
Lambent light far over head; 
Where the purple and the blue, 
Glazed in a transcendent hue, 
Shot their shafts of mellow flare 
Slowly through the ambient air; 
Where the incense's curling grace 
Passed athwart the window's face, 
Mixing with the violet air, 
Mixing with the golden flare, 
Mixing with the blood-red dye, 
Blood of Christ, set there on high. 

Youth 

" Grace o' God," the preacher said, 
And I lifted up my head 
Quickly to the preacher's face, 
Eager for the boon of grace, 



149 
For I felt that there must be 
More in life than I could see. 
Hardly did I sense the blue 
Of the oriel window's hue, 
For my heart burned so within, 
Mutely wondered, "What is sin?" 
And the rushing tides of life 
Tore me with ecstatic strife, 
And I felt that Galahad 
Kept the faith that made me glad. 
He was pure in heart, and I 
Would be pure as he, or die; 
And the psalm I could not hear 
For my heart-throbs strong and clear; 
And the light I could not see 
For the sun that burst in me. 

Age 

" Grace o' God," the preacher said, 
And I lifted up my head, 
Graying with the flight of years; 
My eyes filled with unshed tears. 
Nevermore the child who caught 
"Grace" from where the sunbeams sought 
Ingress through the leaded croft 
Of the oriel window-loft; 
Nevermore the youth who stood 
Valiant in youth's hardihood. 
Yet acutely I was 'ware 



150 

Of the gold and purple flare 

Streaming down the great nave's length, 

Glancing o'er the pillars' strength. 

Age could humorously trace 

Wrinkles in the preacher's face, 

Note the jowls, the stiff, starched band, 

And the quickness of his hand, 

Yet no less be conscious he 

Thundered forth divinity 

To my neighbor man agape 

Like a pompous pouter ape. 

All of this within my eye 

Flickered as the vibrant lie 

Sense imposes on the brain; 

Then my eyelids drooped again, 

Drowsy with the long fatigue 

Of the mind that has no need 

But to rest in some lone glen 

Untrod by the feet of men. 

And the sermon drifted by 

Like the wind's vague choiristy. 

I had known the deepest deep; 

Was the highest heaven so steep 

That I might not climb without 

Help of all this Sabbath rout? 

Then the organ veered away 

To the treble's flecksome play; 

Solemnly above my head, 

" Grace o' God," the preacher said. 



151 
Suddenly my soul took wing, 
Far above the human thing 
That sat dumbly with its kind, 
Prisoner to the common mind; 
And transcendent glory shed 
" Grace o' God " upon my head. 



152 

THE GLEAM 

What is the joy within me 

That I dream? 

What the power, the nameless glory ■ 

Where the Gleam? 

Why this recollection tragic? 

Memory 

Of a sunlit, wide dominion 

Curses me. 

Life's cup passes me unheeded; 
My lips burn; 

For Olympian mead once tasted 
Oft they yearn. 

Was it God's imperial cunning 
Me to bind 

To the skies, lest I go loving 
Mortal mind? 



153 
THE FREEDMAN 

Oh, free me from myself — 

Not from the Over-Soul, the spark divine, 

But from this erring self that walks abroad 

In all the ways of sense, and ever strives 

Against the other for the mastery, 

Turning self-seeking always to the end, 

Searching for glory and the world's applause, 

Using all kindness and sweet charity 

To cover blackness so that men may say, 

" How fair thy raiment, white must be thy soul." 

Oh, free me from myself — 
Burn out the dross, and strip from me away 
The last thing that I love or that loves me 
If needful, — so that I at last may stand 
Loving for love's sake, purified and clean. 



154 

EGO 

I pine for empire. On this puny sphere, 
What worth the tinseled panoply of man, — 
His gilded trappings and his thrones of state? 
Give me great Sirius, or Alcyone; 
Give me the seven Pleiads, or a Sun 
All-glorious, for my chariot in the vault 
Of highest heaven. 

Or with flaming power 
Marshall together all the morning stars, 
And courier with comets my ascent. 
Swing me athwart the vasty bridge of space 
And on supernal heights set empire wide 
For my dominion — yet is not enough. 



155 
ALL — ALL I DEMAND 

All — all I demand — not a part of life, 

(Not the whining, lean ascetic's glass, 

Nor the purple thick drink of the beast), 

But the rich red wine of life — flowing and flowing — 

All joy for my heart, yea, and all sorrow, — 

The foam and the dregs — the bitter and sweet. 

All I demand — a rounded completeness, 

The wide world and its strange, strange byways ; 

Jewels of the East and steel of the West; 

Heat of the tropics that beats on my forehead; 

Cold that numbs to the bones' very marrow; 

Pleasure that tilts on the fingers of Folly; 

Joy that the blood in the veins surely speaks; 

Grimness of life in the desolate fastnesses; 

Grief and heartbreaking — remorse and regret. 

All — all the gamut of living, 

Up from the red of life to its ultimate violet, 

Ascending, descending, rising at last — 

Undertones, overtones, merging and blending, — 

All — all I demand — the fullness of life. 



156 

NARADA 

Before Time was, 

When the Soul of Things 

Moved on the earth 

And made heavy the waters, 

Came I, Narada, — 

I, the Lode-stone, 

I, the Man-force. 

Out of ooze and steam, 

From the slime of earth, 

Slowly I 'gan to shape 

That to be man. 

Eons and eons 

Great forms I moulded, 

Finer each strand of life 

Till the God unfolded. 



157 
THE BODY 

I 

Marvel and wonder of the tinted flesh, 

What and whence are you that the world must guess 

Always the meaning in your scented mesh? 

II 

What does the warm red creeping through 

The ivory, the eyes' soft blue, 

All of the Mendings — hue upon hue — 

III 

Mean in the end? Just the chrysalis shell 
For the soul that pure from God's fingers fell; 
So we believe that His hand meant well. 

IV 

What one of us here (knowing his sins) 
Shall say where soul ends and body begins, 
Where the fibres are caught, where the fabric thins ? 



What one of us here (feeling color and line, 
All that is subtle and sweet and fine 
Of body of yours and of body of mine) 



158 

VI 

Dare deny that this lives alway, — 
Heaven's gold, but this tinted clay? 
See — even God does not say me nay ! 



159 
PAVLOWA 

Thou who hast conquered mortal birth 
And ceased to dwell upon the earth, 
Save as a bird or fairy sprite, 
With trippings on the moonbeams' light, 
And twinklings in the evening sky 
Like planets when the moon is high, — 
Thou art the frond upon the wave, 
The curling foam where sea nymphs lave, 
And all the wanton winds that blow; 
And all the fairest flowers that grow 
Have bathed thee with their essence sweet, 
And lent their grace unto thy feet; 
And thou hast made me feel at last 
The deathless passion of the past, 
And through the dusk to see the face 
Of the great ardor of thy race. 



160 

DEATH AT DAWN 

Burn, candle flame, 

Burn — burn — 

In the night's turn 

Till the grey new day 

Sifts through the dark; 

Then flicker and go out ; 

Leap in thy dying rout; 

Let thy last lingering spark 

Sink into darkness' urn, 

And thy blue spiral stay 

Not longer than the play 

Of the fleeced clouds that drive 

Where day begins to shrive 

With white dawn the plumaged sky. 

Die, candle flame, 

Die die — 

Quick, spirit, quick, and fly 

Ere the white dawn, 

Like the still swan, 

Move silently the night upon 

Out to the sea 

Of Eternity. 



161 
PEACOCK FEATHERS 

(in ancient times there was a method of divining by 
means of gazing upon peacock feathers) 

Peacock, peacock, peacock feather, 

Only you can tell me whether 

Fate will break or loose my tether. 

Argus-eyed, 

Old enchantment, — 

If I sighed, 

Moped and cried, 

Laughed and lied, 

Begged you once to drop an eyelid 

Bronze and golden 

Over azure beauty that's beholden, 

Close that fateful orbit of ill omen, 

Would you, — if I gave your stately mistress 

For her preening neck a golden circlet? 

Would you, if I gave her silver anklets 

And one shining, silken, wavy love-tress? 



162 

THE SPHINX 

Chephren, he who reared the stone, 
In the desert there alone, 
Of the ancient pyramid 
Where Rameses' bones lie hid, 
Musing under Egypt's moon, 
Heard the Nilus waters croon, 
Whispering " Make incarnate now 
On the desert's burning brow 
What I bid thee, as thou can: 
Carve the head of God-like man, 
And the head must sink to rest 
On a woman's rounded breast, — 
Cruel paw and bestial soul 
Round the riddle to a whole: 
Man and woman linked to beast — 
(Yet not all, these are the least). 
Over the tremendous pile 
That Time's hand may not defile 
Spread the terror and the awe 
Drawn from out the Ancient Law, — 
Rear it grim and huge and dumb 
For the endless years to come." 

Now a hundred leagues of sand 
Over Pharaoh's palace stand; 
But men wag their tongues to tell 
Whence the Sphinx, and what its spell; 
They shall never set it free, 
For the spell is " Mystery." 



163 
GREAT SOULS 

Great souls are like the pale sea shells that hold 
Ever the music of the murmurous sea 
That once their rosy-tinting did enfold: 
They breathe to us of an infinity 
Where purer love than our sad hearts have known 
Fell wave on wave of radiance, beating free 
Until the echo of its surge has flown 
With them, that we may sense divinity. 



164 

THE STREET SINGER 

He is some shepherd lad from Mytilene 
Incarnate here, that the pure lyric art 
Of cunning soft-blown reeds remain on earth. 
One pipe he blows, one rhythm all his art; 
That one so sweet that men forget to sow, 
Or leave their harvests at the sound thereof — 
A clear, soft note that snares the listening ear 
With rarest melody. Seers sleep forgot, — 
But he who pipes lives long in memory. 



165 
ARCADY 

Oh, sing to me of Arcady — 

My loved, my long lost Arcady ! 

Sing while I dream and, dreaming, float 

A prisoner on Fancy's boat 

Down the winding, winding river, 

Where the water-lilies ever 

Weave a toil of sweetness 'round me 

To enchant me and confound me. 

Sing, while I pass the gate that gleams, 
Fair entrance to the land of dreams. 
There to the sky rise milk-white towers; 
There bloom the never-fading flowers ; 
(O eyes that never mine shall meet, 
O lips that never mine shall greet; 
Memory of your sweetness holds me; 
Glamour of the past enfolds me). 

Sing on, sing on of Arcady; 

Sing, that my fleeting dream may stay 

And waft me, wind of long ago 

(O wind of all the winds that blow), 

Down the winding, winding river, 

Where the water-lilies ever 

Weave a toil of sweetness 'round me 

To enchant me and confound me. 



166 

THE BARRIER 

They walk on either hand, two who are dead ; 

In Paradise they are not quieted 

For sake of the sweety mortal love they bore 

You flesh to flesh, as they ne'er loved before. 

I may not love you tho my heart doth break 

And subtle pains my soul and body shake, 

For white hands rise between your face and mine 

And in your eyes I read a death-taught sign. 

I may not claim your kiss ; there lies a seal 

That death has set, that life may not reveal. 

For ever this wan barrier is set 

Between our living lips that might have met. 

Your way may not be mine; always I see 

Those ghostly arms that draw you far from me. 

So loving you, I pass with unshed tears 

Alone, to dwell apart the weary years. 

Lo, now they smile as they glide to and fro, — 

Those two dead women whom you used to know! 



167 
HEARTACHE 

There is a little sting within my heart 

The live-long day; 

A little ache wherein sense hath no part 

To always stay. 

And all the summer days are feverish grown ; 

There is no rest; 

Nor in the cool, green grass is solace strown ; 

Only her breast 

May soothe me, — that which I may never gain 

For love of mine; 

Never her touch may ease my heart its pain; 

Nor word nor sign 

Come as a boon to gladden my soul's night; 

Only her face 

Crosses the sun before my clouded sight, 

With wistful grace. 

I am so weary of the endless hurt, 

So fain of peace, 

That I would hunt Death down if I might dare, 

And ask release. 



168 

MY BABY 

Darling, I want my baby; 
He is somewhere, dear, I know, 
Wanting his mother to hush him 
With rock-a-bys soft and low. 

He's somewhere out in the aether, 
A little, new soul unborn, 
And I hear him crying, darling, 
He's so tiny and forlorn. 

He is one of the lonely legion 
Of babies who never can come, 
Who are lost and cry for their mothers 
Till their poor little tongues are dumb. 

And I reach out my hands in the darkness, 
But, dearest, he isn't there, 
Though sometimes just for a moment 
I can feel his silky hair. 

And sometimes he speaks in cooing 
That only a mother knows, 
And tells me his eyes are azure, 
His mouth like a new-blown rose. 

With hands and feet that are dimpled, 
Perfect as flesh could be 
That is shaped to love's perfection, 
In the image of you and of me. 



169 

But perhaps we shall find him sometime; 
So pray for him night and morn 
That the angels will keep him and guard him, 
Our own little babe unborn. 



170 

MEMORY 

Thou who art, Old Memory, 
Search thy scroll and answer me; 
Search the chambers of my heart, 
Where the pure emotions start; 
Touch the curtains of my eyes, 
Let old visions there arise; 
Light this mortal mind so dark 
With thy lantern's glowing spark, 
And unfold to me the vast 
Treasures of my living past. 
Seek out all my restless race; 
If I have forgot one face, 
Brother, sister, lover, friend, 
In the years that have no end, 
Bring them here and let me say 
That I love them all today; 
For the bond doth never break 
That is welded for love's sake. 



171 
TO CARA 

Sometime you were a lily growing 

Beside still waters — flowing — flowing 

Down to the sea; and all thy happy dreams 

God caught to scatter in thy tresses' gleams, 

To golden-crown thee in thy mortal frame. 

Still velvet- white thy throat: ('twere to His shame 

To make thy beauty less) ; still thou must be 

The chalice-cup of heaven's purity. 

Dream on till God shall set thee, lips and eyes, 

Once more a lily in His Paradise. 



172 

WHAT GOD MEANT 

You cannot know how Art is given here, — 
Not as folk think, from out some honey-jar 
Of life, all gracious, velvet and serene. 
Some wrest Art from the maw of dark despair, 
And others mould their sorrow to a form 
All glorious as a Seraph's in high heaven; 
And so you must not rate men by their lives, 
But by their visions, by that far soul-sight 
Clad in the tinsel they alone can weave. 
Why, I knew one who groveled in the dust, 
Yet he could bring a star into a room 
And coax suns from their orbits to illume 
The art he followed. Who shall be the judge 
What God meant for us, whether Art or Man? 



VI 
ORIFIEL 

A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT 

" But Adah sleepeth by the River Pison." 

Charles Lamb. 

" And it came to pass that the Sons of God loved 
the daughters of men." 



CHARACTERS 

Orifiel, an angel who has wedded Adah, 

a mortal. 
Adah, a mortal. 

Or a, the child of Orifiel and Adah. 
Zora, sister to Adah. 
Zariel, a Seraph. 
Raphael, a Seraph. 
Amiel, a Seraph. 
Death, a shape. 
A host of angels. 



175 
ORIFIEL 

A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT 

Scene: A glade near the River Pison. 
Time : Twilight. 

[Adah and Zora walk beside the river] 

Adah 

Two wings have grown so soft and delicate 

Yet strongs a strange fear clutches at my heart — 

His flesh scarce draws a shadow in the sun. 

Zora 

Within these shades thou hast become distraught; 
No mortal foot can tread the shaken air. 

Adah 

That is my sorrow. [Pointing] Seest thou the blue 
Of heaven's high arch ? There hold your eyes. 

Zora 
Lo, a star falls within a golden trail! 

Adah 

A star — a star — and yet my Orifiel ! 

[She addresses the approaching angel] 
Glorious spirit^ that doth drip with light; 
Godhead incarnate within radiant form. 



176 

I lift the tendrils of my soul to thee, 

Beseech, implore, that thou wilt ne'er forsake 

Thy Adah. 

[To Zora] 

Lift up thine eyes, my sister; 

(Give me thy courage lest joy smite me dead). 

He glows a comet in the liquid skies, 

Rolling in billows of celestial light, 

The golden spray of his beatitude. 

He comes, and all the air is finer drawn, 

And glitters like the dust of morning's car. 

I breathe not — heaven's glory is too near. 

[Orifiel descends upon the earth attended by 
three seraphs and a host of angels. The child 
Ora runs out from the glade to greet them. 
Adah speaks to Zora.] 

Adah 

Cover thy head, my Zora, lest the light 

Of his bright presence blast thee like a flame. 

[Zora withdraws within the shadow of the 
glade.] 

Orifiel 

Greeting, my Adah. Look how our fair son 
With all the Blessed Ones of Heaven doth play! 
Alas, that mortal flesh hath found no wings, 
Nor yet a way to shed its earthliness. 



177 
Adah 

My Orifiel; I must confess to thee 

A faulty — all mortal in its selfishness — 

Yet tender; born of such a desperate need 

Thou still shall find some pity in thy breast 

For my sad weakness. I have kept from thee 

His birthright^ in my mortal selfishness: 

He is full-fledged^ an angel as art thou. 

[The child runs to Adah. She removes the 
white garments that swathe his body, revealing 
two wings of purest white that spread with a 
whispering sound upon the air. Orifiel ad- 
dresses the heavens.^ 
Thou Word Immaculate; Thou Word made flesh, 
The earthly seed has given heavenly fruit. 
This is thy perfect law: passion assoiled 
From sin conceives immaculate the flesh 
With flame of passion such as Thou didst know 
When sprang the Nebulae in golden rings 
When Orion strode forth in majesty. 

Adah 
I bore him — 

Orifiel 

Adah; beloved child of earth; 
Incarnate beauty; mystic; wonderful; 
Fashioned of yielding flesh; — in thy warm love 



178 

I more than angel grew, and as a god 
Usurped divinity, dared to create 
Purely a body — an o'ermastering bond 
Twixt earth and heaven. 

Adah 

He lay neath my heart; 
He is my son; I pray thee, let me find 
Some childish fault in his soft purity? 
Must I miss all the guiding of his feet? 
The mortal needs the mortal for its life. 
Within thy shadow I should faint and die, — 
Albeit my great love, if nought should feed 
The aching senses burning in my veins 
For my lips' thirst, only thy lips can quench. 

Orifiel 

I saw thee sleeping in the starlit night; 
Saw and desired with man's untamed desire; 
Came to thee first in dreams and reveries — 
A phantom, lest love's glory should affright 
Thy maiden-self with some too ardent gaze. 
I sought thee here within the scented glade; 
I called at dawn; I whispered low at eve, 
" Adah," and " Adah," till the echoes grew 
A coronal unto the wood and vale. 
If fault there be, that fault is mine alone; 
If sin there be, upon my head that sin. 



179 
But look, my Adah, God has shrived the flesh: 
Thou hast conceived a spirit without fault. 

[The Three Seraphs approach the wedded pair.~\ 

Adah 

Greetings, bright messengers. What gladness falls 
Upon this humble star that here ye pass? 

[Ora runs to the Seraphs and clasps the hand of 
Amiel.] 

Ora 

Greetings, my Raphael, Zariel, Amiel. 

Now that my wings have grown, wilt thou this eve 

Take me unto the moon, the pretty moon? 

Adah 

Hush, thou dear babe; thy wings are soft and frail; 
Stay thou with me and fly within the glade, 
And gather early flowers to deck thy brow, 
And ruddy berries from the mossy hills; 
And when thy wings have grown as Amid's, 
Perchance God wills thy mother shall have wings. 

Raphael 

Poor Adah! On the eternal wind-swept hills 
Thou shalt have wings, else were He not supreme. 

Adah 
[Continuing] 
j And we will find the stars behind the moon, 



180 

And gather in the path of milky light 

The little stars to guide us through the dark. 

Zariel 
The hour draws near. 

Raphael 
[To Adah] 
The shadows of the earth 
Must never gather darkness in his eyes. 

Amiel 
[To Adah] 
Pure spirit moulded in immortal flesh 
Upon this changeful earth may not abide. 

Zariel 
[To Adah] 
Old worlds spin down to vapor in the void 
And new worlds rise, but Law remains unchanged. 

Adah 
[In anguish] 
O cruel ones, is there within your breasts 
No pity for a woman's bleeding heart? 
Leave me not in this fearful solitude, 
Torn from my child, my little weakling babe. 
He will be lonely in the skies at even; 
No lullaby to hush him fast asleep; 



181 
No kiss to fold his eyelids unto rest. 
If he must go, let him return each morn, 
And I will kneel and pray the livelong night 
He will not stumble in among the stars. 

Orifiel 

Poor Adah ! I have cursed thee with my love. 
The sin was mine, but thine the punishment. 
Think not I fail in love: such love I feel, 
Were I God's universe, all love, I could no more. 

Adah 
[Wildly] 
Alone, alone ! Oh, mockery of love ! 
Give me my child, else all thy love is false. 

Ora 

My mother, do not weep. Last night I dreamed 
That thou and I were playing in the sky; 
Now that my wings are grown, there is such pain 
To walk, I pray thee let me learn to fly. 

Adah 
Alone ! alone ! 

Z ARIEL 

The appointed hour draws near. 

Raphael and Amiel, this tender one 

Bear close between thy wings, and if he fails, 



182 

Raise him unto the heavens, floating free 

On thy strong pinions. I with Orifiel 

Shall follow swift behind thee to the heights. 

Orifiel 
[To Adah] 
Adah, my Adah, hear me: let thy heart 
Give back the blood unto each fainting vein. 
I love thee, loVe thee, — am thy Orifiel 
On earth, in heaven, in hell, or anywhere 
Thou goest. Nought that lives can rend apart 
My soul from thine, Beloved. Now, farewell. 

(He addresses the heavens,) 
O Perfect Love, above this mortal dross, 
The pain, the toil, the weary sacrifice, 
Uplift this spirit that is bound to earth; 
Take thou our love and in Thy joy transmute 
The earthly to the heavenly, that we may 
Dwell as on earth, together, once again. 

[Adah swoons. The Seraphs and the host of 
angels ascend, bearing Orifiel and the child 
with them. Darkness falls upon the earth; 
there is no light upon the river save that which 
streams from the celestial host.] 
[A presence, a muffled shape, emerges from the 
shadows of the glade and pauses beside Adah. 
She awakens from her swoon and silently in- 
terrogates him, half rising to her knees. The 
presence speaks. ~] 



183 
Shape 

I am that Nameless One whom men call Death; 
Yet if that be my name, no man doth know, 
For none that live have looked upon my face. 

Adah 

Take thou my hand; upon the farther brink 

Stanch all my wounds with thy f orgetfulness ; 

The flesh dies hard; set thou my spirit free; 

Unveil thy brow; love conquers even Death. 

[The Shape is suddenly bathed in rippling s of 
rainbow light. The mufflings fall away, re- 
vealing an angel of terrifying majesty crowned 
with amaranth; his wings, sweeping far above 
his head, are of living fire.'] 

Adah 

And art thou Death? Methinks thy form doth wear 
Life's semblance, so beclouded are my eyes. 

[Adah dies. The darkness deepens. The angel 
of Death ascends to the heavenly vault, bear- 
ing in his arms the spirit of Adah. Soon he 
is lost to view save as a point of light within 
the velvet darkness of the sky. There is no 
sound upon the earth but the murmur of the 
River Pison. The moon rises slowly and 
floods the glade with silver radiance. Where 
Adah had lain beside the River Pison the 



184 

moonlight discovers only a carpet of white, 
starry flowers wet with drops of glistening 
dew.~\ 



VII 
THE EVE OF SANHAIN 



187 
THE EVE OF SANHAIN 

Scene: A cottage interior in Ireland. 

The father sits on a stool at the hearth. The 
mother is polishing copper bowls. Etain is spin- 
ning. The mother speaks to Etain. 

Mother 

Snarl not the thread, for no good husband waits 
For maids who twist the thread upon the reel. 
Now this way, cushla, all so fair and fine. 

Etain 

It is not I who snarls the shining wool ; 

A fairy teases me the whole day long. 

I vexed her for I pulled a fairy herb 

She set to catch the fat bees ere they fly, 

And hold them captive while she steals their bags 

Of honey, that the old elf-wives may sup. 

Mother 

There is a charm I know — a song sung thrice, 
And paces marked and hands thrown up and down, — 
To drive her hence, and we shall see this night 
If she will go; but in the day, meanwhile, 
See that thou keep thy hands from faery herbs, 
And venture not upon the darkening moor 



188 

Between the day and night, for it is then 

The faery folk have all their cruel power. 

[Etain stops spinning and comes and sits be- 
side her mother] 

Etain 

My mother, tell me, have none ever heard 
Some word or tiding from our wilful Maeve, 
Who wandered on the hills on Sanhain's eve, 
And never more was seen by mortal folk? 

Mother 

Only the owl and titmouse know her bed; 

She dwells beneath the little, singing hills 

With faery folk. God's curse on them who weave 

The magic veil around her blinded eyes, 

That she must wander evermore, nor find 

Her father's hearth, nor see that still we grieve. 

Father 
[Looking out at window — speaks as if in a 
dream] 
Now all the hills are hung with shining webs 
And banners from the ramparts of their towers; 
And all our pleasant greens are ta'en by them 
For revels, where no mortal sun looks down. 

Etain 
My mother, tell me. Cannot Maeve return 
If she but wills it so? What binds her there? 



189 

Love is not there, for faeries may not love; 
They have not souls to love as mortals do. 

Mother 
Who sups on faery food sinks 'yond recall, 
Into the hollow of enchanted mounds. 
Had she but closed her eyes upon their shapes, 
Nor lifted to her lips their wine and mead, 
And called upon the Rood, she might return. 

Etain 
Is there no hope? 

Father 
Yes, there is one ; the sword — 
My father's sword, the two-edged magic sword. 
It was wrought long ago among the hills 
And fashioned cunningly to sunder spells 
And magic of the Sidhe. The hilt is wrought 
Of whitest bronze, and inlaid with red gold; 
His father's father gave it unto him. 
It had come down from immemorial time, 
Bequeathed by mighty folk from whence we sprung; 
And never living man has clasped the hilt, 
And never living man has drawn the blade. 
The sword awaits its master. When he comes 
A sound shall run along the burnished steel 
Of battles in the distance murmuring, 
The sound of chariots and armed men. 
[Knocking] 



190 

Father 

Enter. Who are ye? 

[Enter Conor and Conal] 

Conor 

We are sons of Finn, — 

Conal, and Conor of the Mighty Hand. 

Father 

Greetings. Come sit ye by our hearth and sup. 
Here is good ale brewed by Eleena's hand. 
How came ye on the moor on Sanhain's night? 
[Offers ale] 

Conal 
Conor and Conal fear not faery spells. 

Father 

Yet you are white as hoar frost on the hills. 

What sight has hurt your eyes? Here, drink again! 

Conor 

[Rises, sets dozvn the ale-mug] 
My father and my mother, — nay, frown not; 
I thought to call you once these tender names, 
Ere my fair hopes had fallen in the dust. 



191 
Father 

Thou wert my son, had our lost Maeve but willed 
To choose thee, Conor of the Mighty Hand. 
Alas she is no more — 

Conal 

[Stealing near the hearth] 
She lives, she breathes ! 

Start not with too much j oy ; the heart doth break 
That holds not joy in custom's binding gyves. 
Now hark ye; when I passed Aine's fearsome mound 
(When all the torches and the folk were gone), 
The faery court were dancing on the green, 
And in their midst I spied a stately queen 
In tunic of green silk with clasps of gold, 
And purple mantle set with silver fringe. 
Her plaited hair was wound about her brows, 
Blue-black, as is the beetle's shiny wing; 
Tender her eyes, and smooth and white her wrists. 
Never on mortal soil walked one so fair, 
Or worthier of love. And when we nearer drew, 
It was as if some veil was lifted from our sight, 
And we could know this faery queen was — Maeve. 

Conor 

Safe and unharmed; yet whisperings we caught, 
From out the circle of the faery folk, 



192 

That she is wooed by king of all the crew, 
Midir the Proud; and ere midsummer come, 
She shall be forced to wed this faery king. 

Mother 

She will not wed; some memory doth cling 

Within her baffled brain, of other days; 

They have not smitten from her mortal self 

The blessed memory of human love. 

Thou knowest not faery folk; they have not force 

As we to bend the rod and smite the steel; 

They work with magic essence of the mind, 

With subtle forces and with cunning spells. 

We who on earth have known the most of power, 

Know it is magic stolen from the very gods, 

Lost to all men, but kept by faery folk. 

Why, thou and I could ride upon the wind 

And calm the waves and turn the thunders back 

Unto their fortress in the gloomy hills, 

If we but knew the power that underlies 

The simplest word. The singing sound of it, 

Blown over blossomy meads, breaks open graves 

(The dead but sleep, for death, too, is a spell). 

Take courage; we shall win her back again. 

Father 

[To Conor] 
Who draws the magic sword from yonder wall 



193 
May take her from their toils. Here, test thy brawn. 
Draw forth the sword. 

Mother 

Hark to a woman's word: 

Ere thou shalt test thy strength, look in thy heart. 

No sword may win to thee a mortal soul 

From the dark underworld. Look to the truth 

Of thine own soul to win her from the shades. 

The sword the symbol, in thy heart the power; 

And many trials must be undergone, 

And many dangers passed, ere she be won. 

Conal 
Give me the sword. 

[Pulls at the hilt. It does not stir] 

Father 

It is not thine to dare. 

The magic sword sings in its master's hand. 

Conor 
Now 'tis my turn. 

[Grasps hilt; draws the sword; music fills the 
air] 

Mother 

Hark, there is music here. 

Thou art the one foretold, the Master One, 

And thine the sword and music of its blade. 



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